


Time Enough and Life

by silver_sun



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Immortality, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Torchwood One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 22:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_sun/pseuds/silver_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Writing up the report on the Night Travellers, Jack finds one line in the Electro guide book that confuses him – it closed in 1977. It leaves him with one question, how did Ianto watch films there if it closed six years before he was born?<br/>The answer is one he never expected, and the consequences for them both could change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork for this was made by Mella68 can can be found here on AO3 http://archiveofourown.org/works/348804

**Title:** Time Enough and Life.  
 **Characters/pairings:** Jack/Ianto, team, past Ianto/Lisa mentioned.  
 **Word count:** 23,900  
 **Rating:** nc17  
 **Warnings:** None.  
 **Contains** Sex scene. Temporary character death.  
 **Beta:** [](http://mcparrot.livejournal.com/profile)[**mcparrot**](http://mcparrot.livejournal.com/)  
 **Artist:** [](http://mella68.livejournal.com/profile)[**mella68**](http://mella68.livejournal.com/)  
 **Summary:** Writing up the report on the Night Travellers, Jack finds one line in the Electro guide book that confuses him – it closed in 1977. It leaves him with one question, how did Ianto watch films there if it closed six years before he was born?  
The answer is one he never expected, and the consequences for them both could change everything.  
  
 **A/N:** The guide book about the Electro can be found here [](http://iantos-desktop.livejournal.com/profile)[**iantos_desktop**](http://iantos-desktop.livejournal.com/) [Electro guidebook](http://iantos-desktop.livejournal.com/7217.html#cutid3) The guide book was one of the extras from the BBC Torchwood series 2 website. And a big thank you to [](http://mcparrot.livejournal.com/profile)[**mcparrot**](http://mcparrot.livejournal.com/) for betaing this for me, even when the projected length of the story increased from 16k to nearly 24k.

 

  
The encounter with the Night Travellers had been unsettling to say the least. Their ability to step through film and trap people so that they're caught between one breath and the next almost incomprehensible.  
  
The idea that if technology is sufficiently advanced it becomes indistinguishable from magic couldn’t be more apt in this case, Jack thinks as he gathers up files relating to the Night Travellers and the Electro, and takes them to his office.  
  
The Night Travellers aren’t magic though, Jack knows that. The pain they caused on touching was the biggest clue; they were nothing more than energy. Everything is, when it comes down to it, just energy.  
  
They were nothing more than a sentient projection, rather like the ones that would pilot ships in deep space centuries in the future. So while the original night travellers have been human back when he first tried to track them down in the 1920's, the versions that stepped through the film were nothing more than data ghosts. Their minds and desires frozen in a tight loop, destined to repeat the actions of the past over and over until they are switched off.  
  
How filming them again stops them isn’t clear, but Jack’s best guess is that it either overloaded them or perhaps interrupted the connection to the original film and erased them. How the bottle works he can’t even begin to understand.  
  
But then that’s what a lot of the things that come Torchwood's way are like. Dangerous, incomprehensible, and unsettling in a way that lingers and worms its way into how you see the world, leaving it feeling just that bit more tarnished than before.  
  
Despite all this it has been Ianto's reaction that has unsettled him most of all. Sure his father had taken him there as a kid to see a few movies, but the way he's been jumping at shadows, eyes nervous and worried any time anybody mentions it makes Jack sure there's something more he's missing.  
  
Which is why, when almost everybody else has gone home, Jack is writing up the case file for the Electro alone. While Jack knows that Ianto has the best background knowledge of the place, he also knows that getting him to look at the place in any detail is only likely to make him more jumpy and on edge than he already is.  
  
Tosh’s final report on previous rift activity in the vicinity of the Electro reveals nothing, although Jack suspected that that would be the case; her preliminary searches hadn’t shown anything and he knows that Tosh rarely gets anything wrong.  
  
He flicks through the guide book, looking at the images of the Electro in its heyday, and smiles. There have been so many good nights spent in the back row of various cinemas over the years. Perhaps in a few weeks, once the Night Travellers and the Electro isn’t quite as fresh in their minds, Jack thinks it might be good idea to suggest to Ianto that they go to the cinema.  
  
Jack looks at the slightly blurry photo of its opening as the Panopticon Theatre in 1899, and then at another of its reopening as the Electro cinema in 1924. The booklet lists some of the big name films that played there back in the 1930’s when it was in its prime, then on through a slow decline in the sixties and seventies.  
  
It's interesting in a nostalgic kind of way, but there's nothing there of interest in until he reaches the next to last paragraph of the booklet.  
  
By 1969 the Electro was threatened with closure. It managed a stay of execution thanks to the British Film institute scheme supporting regional arthouse cinemas, and was renamed the Cardiff Showhouse. Even so, as the 1970s wore on it struggled to turn a profit and it finally closed its doors on the 22nd of February 1977.  
  
Jack stops and reads the sentence again. Simple, factual and easy to understand it is also completely incomprehensible in relation to what Ianto has told him about it.  
  
There had been such genuine fondness and affection in Ianto's voice at the memories of Saturday mornings spent there with his father that Jack finds it incredibly unlikely that it is a lie. Yet if it's not a lie Ianto is a great deal older than he looks and had lied about his age when he joined Torchwood One. Either that or his father's idea of a nice day out was to zip back a couple of decades to see a film.  
  
All the options are preposterous, yet a quick search of the internet confirms the 1977 closure date. The only thing that’s clear is that, for whatever reason, Ianto has been lying to him, and maybe to Torchwood from the outset. The question is why?  
  
Jack is still trying to work out just what Ianto could hope to gain from it, and why he'd invent something that couldn't be true, when the man himself walks in carrying two mugs of coffee.  
  
Putting them down on Jack's desk, he smiles at Jack, and then says, “I thought you might like some help with the report. I can cover the Electro and look into where the film rolls were purchased. You could do the Night Travellers.”  
  
It seems to confirm to Jack that Ianto knows that there is a discrepancy with the dates and that he doesn't want it discovered. Glaring at Ianto's blatant attempt to continue to deceive him, Jack says, “I'd bet you'd just love that.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Ianto's eyes flick down to where the guide book is open on Jack's desk, then his shoulders slump. “Oh.”  
  
Ianto’s guilt at being found out is all too obvious, and Jack feels his heart sink, the hope that there might be a better explanation than Ianto deliberately lying to him dying before it’s even fully realised. “How about you start with fact that the Electro closed six years before you were born?”  
  
“I'm sorry.” Ianto sits down opposite Jack, his hands clasped in his lap. “I suppose I should be grateful that you're not pointing a gun at my head right now.”  
  
“You think I need to be?” Jack asks, the anger starting to ebb as he looks at him, seeing how defeated and vulnerable he looks. Because he knows that's not what Ianto is usually like at all. He's far stronger than many have given him credit for, he keeps going, and doesn't admit defeat. Not when faced by cannibals, people holding a gun to his head or even an army of Cybermen tearing Torchwood Tower apart.  
  
It's that optimism, and sometimes near idiotic bravery that's part of what's making him fall in love with Ianto a little more each day. And to see him like this, not fighting back, scares him, because he doesn't know what it means. Although now he thinks about it all the times Ianto has fought it has been to protect others, the idea that perhaps Ianto sees his own life as less worth fighting for than other peoples worries Jack as much as the thought that Ianto isn't the man he thought him to be.  
  
Ianto slowly shakes his head. “After Lisa, after what happened, you told me if I ever lied to you like that again there'd be no second chances.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I'm sorry, I really am.”  
  
“A lot of things have changed since then,” Jack says. He knows that Ianto had truly believed he could save Lisa, that everything that he'd done had been out of love. Being as he'd once nearly turned everyone into gas mask wearing zombies in the name of making a bit of quick cash, he'd quickly decided that Ianto had deserved a second chance, just like he'd been give all those years ago.  
  
“Have they?” Ianto asks, sounding uncertain of whether Jack really means it.  
  
“Yes.” After the year I've had, Jack thinks to himself, you really don't know just how much. “So why don't you tell me?  
  
Ianto takes a shaky breath, then says, “I was born in 1948, and I spent 25 years frozen at Torchwood One.”  
  
Cryogenics. He's not sure why he'd not considered it before. It's probably the best answer that Ianto could have given him. It means he's just a normal human, guy, who's just a bit out of time. Sagging back in his chair, Jack lets relief wash over him, before finally saying, “Is that all?”  
  
Ianto seems surprised that Jack isn't angry, “Isn't that bad enough?”  
  
Jack can think of a whole lot of things that would have been worse than Ianto is just a man out of his time, like so many others Jack has met over the years. Looking at him, Jack thinks that it explains a lot of things that he'd not even realised were out of place until now. There's still one question though, “What I don't get is why you didn't tell me?”  
  
“When?” There's a hint of anger in Ianto's voice now. “Should I have told you when I was trying to get you to hire me? Would that have made it easier? Or would I found myself retconned and dumped who knows where?”  
  
“I don't know.” Jack hates to admit it but he really doesn't know how it would have played out. He'd looked at Ianto's personnel records from London when he'd been pestering him for a job, and there hadn't even been a hint of it in there. “Why wasn’t any of this on your file? Torchwood One was many things, but I seem to remember they were pretty keen on paperwork.”  
  
“Because you only saw what I wanted to be seen.”  
  
“You hacked your own file so I'd hire you?” Jack knows he shouldn't be surprised that Ianto would do this, but he really doesn't like the fact that Ianto had set out to deceive him about even the most basic facts about himself.  
  
“No, believe it or not, not everything is about you,” Ianto says not unkindly. “I hadn't even thought of trying to get back into Torchwood when I changed it.”  
  
“Then why?” Jack asks surprised.  
  
“Why do you think?” Ianto gets up and starts pacing. “There were only twenty seven of us who got out of Torchwood London alive, and the Future Options Committee, once it was set up, needed any survivor who was able to assist with the what was left of the data bases, they didn't even know the names of half of the missing and dead until then. I just made sure there was nothing on my record that would make them look twice at me.”  
  
“Was any of it true?” Jack asks, his heart sinking, wondering if Ianto had constructed an entirely new identity for himself, just as he had done when he’d taken the name Jack Harkness all those years ago. “Is your name even Ianto?”  
  
“Of course it is. Most of it was true, I just changed the dates, set up a new National Insurance number, took out anything about the cryogenics project. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just set up a new identify it was because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up the pretence.” He stops, overwhelmed by the memories for a moment, and when he continues his voice is far from steady. “I was caring for Lisa, most of my friends were dead, I didn’t have the time needed to make it believable and I knew was too tired not to slip up with aliases. It wasn’t worth the risk.”  
  
He stops again, this time to take a drink of the now nearly cold coffee he’d brought in earlier.  
  
“So my birthday is the 19th of August. My parents were Ernest and Lizzy Jones. I don't have any brothers or sisters. I really did shoplift. I was ten, it was some sweets; if you’re really interested I think they were mint flavoured. And I didn't go to college or university, but then in the 60's the children of shopkeepers struggling to keep their business afloat really didn't have the money to go.”  
  
“I always thought you were smart enough to have gone,” Jack says, catching the long held disappointment in Ianto's voice. “So how did it happen? How did you end up frozen in London?”  
  
Ianto gives Jack as small, sad smile. “I volunteered for it.”  
  
‘What?” Volunteering for a cryogenic project, to be frozen with experimental or alien technology would have risky, and Jack asks, “Why?”  
  
“I didn't have much to lose.”  
  
“There's always something.” Jack gets a little closer to him. “Your life can't have been so bad that you didn't care what happened to you.”  
  
“What do you know?” Ianto glares at him. “You know nothing about me.”  
  
“And who's fault's that?”  
  
“Fine. I had nobody, nothing.” His hands ball into fists at his sides. “My mam died when I was kid. I'd sold my dad's tailors shop when he'd become too ill to work, so I could look after him, and because I wasn't good enough at it, not like he'd been. By the time he ended up in Providence Park, and he didn't even know his own name, never mind mine. And I couldn't watch....”  
  
“Ianto...” Jack begins, starting to put his arm about him.  
  
“No, you wanted to know. No more secrets, right?” He jerks away, tears in his eyes. “I ran, I went to London.” He smiles bitterly. “I thought life might be better there.”  
  
Jack doesn't need to ask if it was. The fact that Ianto was willing to take part in the cryogenics project pretty much says how badly it must have gone.  
  
“I had no job, no friends, no money, I couldn't afford to pay my rent so I wasn't even going to have somewhere to live in a few weeks. And then spotted the advert in the dole office. It seemed like an answer to all my problems.”  
  
“Torchwood was recruiting in a job centre?” He doesn't want to sound too sceptical about it, but it really doesn't sound like how they'd operated, unless of course it had been a lot different in London than it had been in Cardiff.  
  
Sitting back down, Ianto says, “Nothing in the advert said they were Torchwood. The name wouldn't have meant anything to me then anyway. It said just that there were vacancies for research test subjects, no experience needed, accommodation provided.” His expression turns bitter as he continues, “It turned out that my most marketable skill was the fact that nobody would know or care if I went missing. It was the same for the other eleven people, we were all recruited because we were nobodies; we were expendable.”  
  
That sounds much more like the Torchwood of old that Jack had known. Ruthless in how it carried out what it believed to be necessary.  
  
“When I saw top secret and official secrets act stamped on what they'd given us to sign I thought they were MI5.” He shakes his head at his own past naivety. “I think I'd half convinced myself I was going to be James Bond before they said they were Torchwood and explained what it was.”  
  
“You in a tux?” Jack says with grin, trying to lighten the mood a little. “I could go with that. You could be ...”  
  
“Don't,” Ianto snaps, sounding hurt. “Don't make this harder than it already is, and try thinking with something other than what's in your trousers for once.”  
  
Knowing that his attempt to help has fallen flat, he says, “Not the time and place? Got it. Would, ‘Sorry any of this ever happened,’ have been better?”  
  
“Not really.” Ianto looks at the floor rather than at him. “If I hadn't got the job I'd never have met you. I'd be an old man or dead.”  
  
It's the truth, Jack knows it, but it's still unpleasant to have to think about it.  
  
“You told me once that you never regretted being out of your time, because it had meant you had the opportunity to meet people you otherwise never have known or loved, well...” Ianto reached a hand across the desk to Jack. “I feel the same. Whatever happens I want you to know that.”  
  
It sounds more ominous than reassuring. Hoping that he's not reading anything into it that isn't intended, Jack says, “You want to take a break?”  
  
Ianto looks tempted, but sighs saying, “No. This isn't going to be any easier if I leave it.”  
  
“Alright. But you can stop if you need to.”  
  
He nods, but doesn't look like he's about to take the advice. “I don't remember much about the cryo units, apart from that they weren't as small as I'd imagined they’d be and that they were in warehouse type building in the East End. They'd divided us into three groups, five years, ten years and twenty years. I was in the twenty year group.”  
  
“They messed up, didn't they?” Jack interrupts. Twenty years would have meant he'd have been taken out of cryo in 1993. Something which, even without being told, he knows can't be right. “So what happened?”  
  
Ianto nods, letting go of Jack's hand. “The project was shelved in the mid 80's due to cost, or so they told me when they finally woke me up. It didn't help that two of the three people heading up the project were killed by an alien artefact at around that time. The cryo units were left in the warehouse and forgotten.”  
  
“At least they were left switched on,” Jack says, knowing that if they hadn't, and the test subjects had all been subjected to a rapid, uncontrolled defrost it's unlikely that any of them would be around to tell the tale.  
  
“It wasn't until Yvonne Hartman was given control of Torchwood One, that we were found. She decided to consolidate all the offices and storage facilities across London into the newly built tower in Canada Square.” He looks down at the desk top, fingers tracing the grain of the wood, before adding quietly. “If she hadn't I might have still been there.”  
  
“Guess I've got something I should be thankful to her for. And I never though that I'd be saying that about her.”  
  
“They gave me a job, the same as they did with the rest of them. Yvonne said it would be nice having somebody who had a good old fashioned work ethic. Gave me her Queen and Country spiel.” Ianto shakes his head. “She could have been amazing, but she was too focused on carving out her place in history.”  
  
They lapse into silence. Jack has a lot of questions, but for the moment there is only one that seems to matter. Why had Ianto kept this information back? Ianto knew how they dealt with people from the past who came through the Rift like John Ellis and Diane Holmes or those that had been kept in cryo like Tommy Brockless.  
  
Puzzled, he says, “You could have told me all this, after what happened with Lisa, any time really. There's nothing there that would make you a risk to anybody or that would have cost you your job.”  
  
“Because it isn't everything,” Ianto says glumly. He looks at the decanter and glasses on the desk, then gestures towards them. “Do you mind?”  
  
“Go ahead,” Jack says, apprehension growing again.  
  
Ianto pours himself a glass, his hands shaking slightly. Drinking it fast, he pours himself another.  
  
“Hey, steady,” Jack says concerned. “That's not going to help.”  
  
“I'm not sure anything can,” Ianto says morosely, but he doesn't drink any more.  
  
“Ianto, just tell me what it is.”  
  
“While I was frozen.” He looks at Jack with fear in his eyes. “I think they did something to me.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Jack asks; trying not to sound as worried about it as Ianto looks.  
  
“I didn't notice at first,” Ianto says quietly, turning the glass in his hands. “But it's getting more noticeable, isn't it?”  
  
“What is?”  
  
“I've been here the best part of two years now.” He looks at Jack again. “Do I look any different?”  
  
It feels like a trick question or the kind of one that you really aren't expected to know the answer to, but the person asking it wants you to say something anyway. So Jack does, “You've put on weight?”  
  
Ianto gives him a rather annoyed look.  
  
Obviously not the right answer, and Jack quickly says, “I never said it was bad weight.”  
  
Ianto rolls his eyes. “You don't see any other differences?”  
  
“No. Look, Ianto what's this about?” Worry is making him lose his patience quicker than normal. “Because I could sit here all night playing twenty questions and not find out a thing. So why don't you just tell me?”  
  
“I'm not getting any older.”  
  
Jack stares at him. He's not sure what he'd expected Ianto to say, but it certainly wasn't that.  
  
“You think I'm crazy, don't you?”  
  
“I never said that.”  
  
“I can prove it,” Ianto says, sounding a little desperate. “My personnel file from London is on the mainframe, my ID badge picture will be on it. I didn’t make any changes to it, I promise. Just look at it, Jack. Please?”  
  
“Okay.” Jack clicks through a few links, and then a scan of Ianto's old ID badge appears on screen. It's a not particularly good head and shoulders image of Ianto looking a little thinner and with the half worried, half eager look in his eyes that he'd had when he'd been trying to secure a job at Torchwood Three. It's an ID badge, nothing more, nothing less, and Jack says, “What am I supposed to be getting from this?”  
  
“Look at the date.”  
  
Just visible on the corner of the badge it says, issued 17th Feb 2000. Jack stares at the date and then at Ianto.  
  
“My birth certificate says I was born in 1948, so I should be sixty now. But I spent nearly twenty six years of that frozen, so I suppose the question should be, do I look about thirty five?”  
  
“No,” Jack admits. He hates to think what it will mean for him if he’s right, as he knows only too well what it's like to stay the same while the world ages around you.  
  
“People are going to notice soon,” Ianto says miserably, before finishing the rest of the glass. “Five more years and it's going to be noticeable. People will say I look young for thirty. Give it ten and there's no way anybody could fail to notice.”  
  
“We'll find out what they did.” Standing up, Jack pulls Ianto against him. “We'll find it and put it right.”  
  
Ianto tenses. “So I'm wrong, am I?”  
  
“What? No.” Jack’s heart twinges with a sudden pain. “I just don't want this for you. Living so long...” Jack sighs, and holds him a little tighter. “It gets lonely.”  
  
“I wouldn't be alone.” He looks at Jack, hope in his eyes. “You'd always be there.”  
  
“Ianto...”  
  
“I'm not expecting it to be a relationship, not like that. Forever is a long time,” he says carefully. “But I hope we'd always be friends.”  
  
Jack signs and closes his eyes. “You've been giving this a lot of thought, haven't you?”  
  
“Yes.” Ianto relaxes a little. “Although probably not as much as I should have.”  
  
“It's a hard thing to think about.” In the days and months after he'd first realised that he'd changed, Jack knows that he'd spent much of that time trying to crawl in to a bottle or into any willing bed he could find, desperate to drown out the thoughts of what his future might be.  
  
“I thought I'd die before it became noticeable,” Ianto says quietly, sounding like he can't quite believe he's actually admitting this. “Ever since...what happened, London, the Cybermen, it's all just feels like borrowed time.”  
  
“Don't,” Jack presses a finger to Ianto's lips. “Don't talk like that.”  
  
“Sorry.” Ianto sighs, then says wearily. “I don't want to think about this anymore I don't want to think about anything.” He rubs his eyes. “I'm so tired.”  
  
Jack knows that since the Night Travellers appeared two nights ago Ianto has been increasingly on edge, and he asks, “When did you last sleep?”  
  
“Last night.”  
  
Jack can see the dark smudges under Ianto's eyes. “For how long? Because I’m guessing it wasn’t the whole night.”  
  
Closing his eyes, Ianto leans forward to rest his head against Jack shoulder. “Three, four hours maybe.”  
  
Wishing that he'd asked Ianto to stay with him the past few nights rather than just telling him to get some sleep at home, Jack says, “Let me guess the night before, about the same?”  
  
Ianto nods, the movement awkward against Jack's shoulder. “I just can't seem to stop thinking about it.”  
  
“I could distract you,” Jack says, smiling at him. He needs him to know that he's not angry about him not having told him the truth about his past. “I can be very distracting,”  
  
Ianto returns the smile. “I know you can.”  
  
“You want me to be distracting now?”  
  
Ianto lifts his head so he's looking directly at Jack. “What I want is for you to screw me until I'm having trouble remembering my own name, never mind whatever happened in London.”  
  
Jack laughs. He's not sure if he's more surprised that Ianto has suggested it or that he'd not done it first himself.  
  
“Is that a yes?” Ianto says sounding like he already knows that it is.  
  
“For you, Ianto?” Jack grins at him. “Always.”  
  
“Come on then,” Ianto says, moving towards the hatchway down to Jack room. “I'm not going to have to delete sections of the Hubs CCTV footage again.”  
  
Following Ianto, Jack says, “Don’t you think having blank sections looks more suspicious?”  
  
“I’d rather people had suspicions than have my naked arse on film for all to see.”  
  
“I wouldn't mind,” Jack says with a smirk. “I think it's a very fine ass.”  
  
Ianto gives a snort of laughter, and climbs down into Jack's room.  
  
During the re-modelling of the Hub while he had been away, his room under his office had been enlarged slightly, so that there is enough space for larger bed and room to store his clothes. It’s still not exactly homely, but it is better. Not that Jack particularly cares about how it looks at the moment.  
  
With Ianto already physically tired Jack decides that energetic probably isn’t the way to go – strained muscles and bruises from falling backwards off the bed really isn't something Ianto needs. No, what he needs to do is occupy Ianto's mind, and if he's honest, his own as well.  
  
Standing behind him, Jack leans in so that his mouth is next to Ianto's ear. "Close your eyes and just feel."  
  
Jack strips Ianto of his clothes, hands lingering, caressing his body as he does so. It's familiar, comforting, something that they've done so many times before, and Jack finds himself relaxing as well, the tension easing as he allows himself to be caught up in the moment.  
  
The suit jacket goes first, then the silk tie, the slippery material playing through his fingers. The waistcoat buttons are next, but he leaves it on, the fine wool hanging open to reveal the deep red lining within. Once the shirt is unbuttoned as well, Jack runs his hands across the dark, curling hairs on Ianto's chest.  
  
He can feel Ianto's breathing quicken as his hands finally make contact with bare skin. He wonders if it will always be like this between them or if the passage of time will take it from them. Trying to push the idea from his mind, Jack concentrates on alternating light teasing touches with firmer ones, until he's rewarded with a breathy, “Please.”  
  
Taking off Ianto's waistcoat and shirt, Jack doesn't linger over removing the trousers and underwear. Turning his attention to his own clothes, Jack quickly strips off, leaving their clothes tangled together on the floor.  
  
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Jack retrieves lube from under the pillow, and a condom from a box that is partially under the bed.  
  
“How do you want me?” Ianto asks, speaking for the first time since they entered Jack's room.  
  
“You could sit on my lap.” Jack pats the top of his leg. “Best seat in the house.”  
  
Ianto laughs relaxed and genuine, and then leans in for a kiss. “That might be the best idea you've had all night.”  
  
It's an intimate position despite the fact that they can't see each other's faces. The heat between them, the thin trail of sweat that's runs down Ianto's back to be lost where their bodies meet, and the feel of skin against skin.  
  
Jack sees, hears and feels each little movement, and knows how Ianto will react to his touch. He knows those responses almost as well as he knows his own.  
  
Yet what they have isn't just sex, and it hasn't been for some time. Jack wonders sometimes if Ianto knows that. He hopes he does.  
  
Admittedly sex, or rather the desire for it, had been how it had started. By the time that it had actually happened, awkward and wonderful and messy in his office after Ianto's surprise proposition with a stopwatch, he'd known that they'd gone beyond something as simple as mutual lust and into something that neither of them were ready or able to define.  
  
Since returning from the Year That Never Was he knows it has changed again. He'd hoped to come back fixed, instead he'd come back broken in a different way. They lean on each other now in a way that Jack knows they wouldn't be comfortable doing with anybody else.  
  
How much more will their relationship change it they have a few more years? Longer. What if Ianto has forever the same as himself?  
  
Jack closes his eyes, hands gripping Ianto's hips tighter as his movements slow to almost nothing. He can't think about this now, about the wonderful, terrifying things that Ianto living for such a very long time could mean.  
  
“Jack?” Ianto asks breathlessly. “Is something wrong?”  
  
“No,” Jack says letting the strain in his voice be interpreted as something else. “Just trying to last.”  
  
“Really don't think you need to,” Ianto says turning his head to look at Jack. “I'm not going to.”  
  
“In that case...” Jack kisses the back of Ianto neck and down onto his shoulder. “I'll get things moving.”  
  
It's a pace Jack knows that neither of them can maintain for any length of time, with Ianto pushing back into each of his short, fast, thrusts.  
  
Ianto gasps, sharper than those before, his body going tense. Then Jack feels a flood of wet warmth across their hands, the tight clench of muscles around his cock pulling him moments later over the edge as well.  
  
Panting, Jack keeps his arms wrapped around Ianto, holding them together, until the last tremors have faded.  
  
Condom removed, they lie together on the bed, hands seeking out skin that is still over sensitised, as they kiss.  
  
“Are you going to stay?” Ianto asks, once he's curled under the covers, gesturing sleepily to the space in the bed beside him.  
  
“For a while.” Rolling onto his side, Jack pulls some of the covers over himself. “I've got a few things I need to finish off, but they can wait for now.”  
  
Ianto murmurs an agreement, then closes his eyes.  
  
Once Ianto is asleep, Jack slips out of bed. Stopping only to pick up underwear and a t-shirt, he heads back up to his office to check what information there is on the mainframe about past projects that Torchwood One ran. He just hopes he can give Ianto some good news in the morning.  
  
He and his team had salvaged, scavenged, and where those hadn't proven possible, stolen, anything they could get from Torchwood One after its fall. It was better they had it, in Jack's opinion, than it falling into the hands of UNIT or any one of the numerous committees or shadowy organisations within the government.  
  
It had been small artefacts mostly, anything that they could transport back to Cardiff in the back of the SUV. Tosh had done what she could with the computer systems, but a lot of the archive files had been corrupted with the Bad Wolf virus, and those that hadn't were fragmentary from where a running battle between Cybermen, Daleks and Torchwood One's security staff had been fought in the server room.  
  
It's the early hours of the morning when Jack finally admits defeat. The records that remain from the 1970's at Torchwood One are patchy, and without any concrete details about the project other than Ianto's name, which Ianto had presumably removed from any files associated with it, Jack knows that he could look for a week and still not find it.  
  
Ianto is still asleep when Jack climbs back down the ladder into his room, although from the twisted and bunched up covers it looks like his sleep has been far from restful.  
  
Lifting the tangled covers as best he can, Jack gets into bed. At somewhere between a single and a double it's rather cramped, and Jack has to spoon against his partner to comfortably fit. As he does, Ianto mumbles something about Jack's knees being cold without really waking, then settles back against him.


	2. Chapter 2

The space in the bed beside him is empty and has already grown cold when Jack wakes.  
  
Looking round in the dimly lit room, Jack can't see any of Ianto's clothes that had been left on the floor. Not wanting to jump to any conclusions about why Ianto has sneaked out of bed without waking him, Jack calls out, “Ianto.”  
  
He waits a moment for a reply. When there isn't one, Jack gets out of bed, and after a brief pause to pull on a pair of trousers, he climbs up the ladder to his office.  
  
His office on first inspection appears to be as he left it the previous night, with the paperwork needed for writing the report on the Electro and the Night Travellers still on his desk. Looking closer though he can see that the mugs are gone, and the glass Ianto had used has been washed up and place back next to the decanter.  
  
Sure that Ianto is around somewhere, rather than having surreptitiously gone home without waking him, Jack heads out into the Hub. “Ianto, you still here?”  
  
“Over here,” Ianto says, standing up from where he'd crouched down to open the cupboard under the coffee machine. He places a bowl and packet of instant oats on the counter.  
  
There aren’t many home comforts in the Hub, and despite living there for over a century Jack hasn’t really felt the need to add many. The decontamination showers work well enough, launderettes takes care of his clothes, and cafes and takeaways. The coffee machine, a kettle, a fridge and a mircowave are about the only other concessions that have been made to normal, everyday life.  
  
There are, after all, only so many takeaway pizza leftovers you can eat before you want something else for breakfast.  
  
Jack is relieved to see that Ianto seems calmer than he’d done the night before, although he still looks tired.  
  
“You could have woken me you know,” Jack says walking over to him.  
  
“You usually sleep less than I do. I didn't want to disturb you.” Ianto busies himself with the coffee machine and mugs. Putting a second one down next to his own, he asks, “Do you want some?”  
  
“Sure,” Jack smiles at him, and gets some breakfast for himself out of the cupboard. “Have I ever turned down your coffee?”  
  
“No.” Ianto laughs. “You turning down coffee should be added to the list things signalling the apocalypse. Rain of toads, rivers running backwards, you refusing coffee.”  
  
They sit down on the old sofa under the Torchwood sign to eat, while around them the workstations flicker and buzz quietly as they start to power up and run Tosh's system checks for the day.  
  
Jack knows that this is probably about as domestic as it’s ever likely to get for them. And while he doesn’t care about it for himself, he wonders sometimes if he should make some kind of effort for Ianto, so that he's got at least one normal thing in his life. Something that is likely to be more important than ever now. Maybe he should suggest spending a couple of nights a week at Ianto's flat, have breakfast there before coming to work.  
  
“You're quiet this morning,” Ianto says, when they've sat there for a while in silence.  
  
“Just thinking.” Jack's not quite sure that he wants to share what about with Ianto just yet, in case Ianto takes the view that he's only considering it now that he knows about him potentially living for a long time.  
  
“About last night?”  
  
“Kind of,” Jack says, knowing that can’t avoid the subject, although he would have liked to finish his coffee before they start talking about it.  
  
“I’ve been thinking about it as well.” Ianto pushes the half eaten remains of his porridge around the bowl with his spoon. “And I’ve come to a decision.”  
  
“You have?” Jack hopes it founds interested rather than worried.  
  
“I want the team to investigate what happened,” Ianto says, abandoning the bowl in favour of his coffee. “Well if you'll let them.”  
  
“If it's want you want, I will.” Jack looks at Ianto trying to gauge how he’s coping, but gets nothing. It worries him just how well Ianto can hide what he’s thinking and feeling, and that he believes that it is still necessary to do so. “You're sure about this?”  
  
Ianto nods. “Yes. I don't want to keep secrets from them or you. Not for something like this. Not again.”  
  
And that, Jack thinks, pretty much explains everything about why Ianto has decided this is necessary. The hurt feelings and sense of betrayal that had lingered between Ianto, the rest of the team and himself, following what had happened with Lisa had been difficult. This really isn't the same, but he knows that Ianto won't be able to help but draw parallels with it.  
  
Getting up, Ianto says, “I'll need about an hour to get the briefing details together.”  
  
“Take as long as you need, nobody is going to be in for at least two.”  
  
Ianto nods. “There isn’t that much information for me to get together. It’s just what I remember, what I told you last night. Unless you've found anything to add to that?”  
  
Jack knows there's no point in denying that once Ianto had fallen asleep he'd searched the mainframe. He doesn't want Ianto to think that he did it out of lack of trust in his version of events, so he says, “I wanted to be able to give you some good news.”  
  
“But there wasn't anything, was there?”  
  
“No. I'm sorry.” Jack just hopes his lack of success was simply down to not knowing what he was searching for, rather than the fact that they haven't got the information at all.  
  
Ianto sighs. “I suppose it was always too much to hope that something would go right one of these days.”  
  
“We can get Tosh to take a look,” Jack says, not wanting him to give up hope on it. If anybody can find it, Jack thinks, it would be Tosh. She knows how the mainframe works and what it can and can't do better than any of them.  
  
Gathering up their breakfast things, Ianto says, “Once everybody is in could you get them to assemble in the boardroom. I think it's best to tell them all together, I don't want to have to do this more than once.”  
  
  
Once Ianto has gone, Jack takes to opportunity to get dresses and to finish the report on the Night Travellers.  
  
Writing up reports is, in Jack’s opinion the most tedious part of the job. He’d rather be helping Ianto look into what had happened to him, but knows that he almost certainly would prefer to be alone to get his thoughts in order.  
  
Ianto’s need for time alone had confused Jack at first. The only times when he wants to be left alone for any length of time is when he knows he worried or unhappy about something to the point where he's sure he won't be able to hide it. The rest of the time he needs people around him to remind him why it's all worth it.  
  
It had taken Ianto telling him in no uncertain terms that constantly having people around him means that he can't relax, because he's sure they'll want something or expect him to behave in a certain way, for him to understand that Ianto wanting some time alone wasn't actually a bad thing.  
  
The report on the Night Travellers is almost complete when he sees Ianto come back from the archives, and head for the boardroom.  
  
Following him in, Jack says, “You don't have to do this right now. If you want time to look into to it before you tell them, you can have it.”  
  
“The Rift is in a quiet phase for the next few days,” he says, putting the three thin, cardboard folders he'd been holding down on the table. “Now is as good a time as we're ever likely to get. And I told you before I don't want this to be a secret we keep from them. Torchwood has too many secrets as it is. ”  
  
“Can’t argue with that,” Jack says, although he knows that sometimes some of those secrets are better staying just that. There are so many things that he's seen and done that will always remain so.  
  
“Everyone is here now,” Ianto says looking down through the glass wall of the boardroom that overlooks the main area of the Hub, as Gwen arrives, waving to Owen and Tosh as she does. “It's probably best to do it before they get started on something else.”  
  
“You want me to call them in?”  
  
Ianto hesitates for a moment, watching the team chatting, a melancholy look on his face, before saying, Yes. I need...” He stops and turns away from both the glass and from Jack. “I can't put this off. So please, Jack, just do it.”  
  
Putting a hand on Ianto's shoulder, Jack give it a squeeze, and then leaves the room.  
  
“Team meeting, kids,” Jack shouts down from the walkway between the boardroom and Owen's greenhouse. “We've got a new case.”  
  
Jack and Ianto remain standing by the projection screen that occupies the far end of the room, while the rest of the team find seats and sit down.  
  
“So what’s the case then?” Owen asks.  
  
There's no easy way of doing this, so Jack just says, “Ianto.”  
  
They all turn to look at Ianto, assuming that Jack means that Ianto is to tell them the information.  
  
“He means I'm the case,” Ianto says, his voice calm, although his posture is tense.  
  
Gwen, Tosh and Owen all look at Jack, confused.  
  
“What’s he done now?” Owen asks, when nobody else has spoken.  
  
“Owen,” Tosh says, giving him a pointed look.  
  
“It's not like that,” Ianto says wearily, looking like he's starting to have second thoughts about the idea.  
  
“So this is just a training thing, right?” Gwen asks, sounding relieved. “We pretend you’re an alien and investigate. We did a few exercises like this in the police. Disaster recovery exercise sort of thing.”  
  
“No,” Ianto says, voice measured and cautious, as he watches their reactions. “This is for real.”  
  
“Jack.” Gwen turns to him. “What is going on? Ianto's one of us.”  
  
Jack shakes his head, letting her know he’s not going to be the one giving the answers. “This is Ianto's idea. Give him a chance to explain.”  
  
Taking a deep breath, Ianto picks up the files and hands one them each of them, saying, “I've not been entirely honest with any of you about how I first started work with Torchwood, or when it was. Or even how old I am. All the basics are in here.”  
  
Owen has barely glanced at his copy before he dumps it down on the table. “This is bollocks. All the times I've patched you up I've never found anything odd. You and Jack have had your fun, seeing how long you can wind us up for. You know if you'd only put the cryogenics bit in I might have believed...” Owen stops and looks at Ianto. “This isn't a joke, is it?  
  
“I really wish it were,” Ianto says sadly. He digs his hands into his pockets, uncomfortable with how they are all looking at him. Taking a deep breath he walks towards the door. Pausing just before he leaves, Ianto says, “If you'd all take a few minutes to read through it, I’ll make us some coffee.” He smiles tightly, the uncertainty and fear that Jack knows are just below the surface starting to show through, despite his best attempts to hide it. “I'm sure you’ll all have questions and I’ll answer them as far as I’m able when I get back.”  
  
“So anybody else got a mysterious past they'd like to share?” Jack says jokingly once Ianto has left. “Because if anyone used to be a champion mud wrestler I want to see pictures.”  
  
Rather awkward laughter follows. Then Gwen asks, “How long have you known? I mean is this why you’re with Ianto? Because he' not getting any older, that he's like you?”  
  
“No, and I only found out last night.” Jack decides that the fact that he’d confronted Ianto about it rather it having been information that he’d volunteered, isn’t something that they need to know.  
  
“There's not any chance he caught it from you is there?” Owen asks, then makes an irritable noise at the looks on both Gwen and Tosh's faces. “What? I'm just saying what we're all thinking here.”  
  
“Believe me if it was catching in that way the whole world would have known about it years ago.” Jack's lost count of the amount of men, women and aliens that he's been with in the long years since what happened to him on the Gamestation. It's not because he doesn't care, or didn't think anything of them at the time, but that some of it is such a very long time that details start to get a bit hazy.  
  
“Well that's something to be grateful for,” Owen says sounding relieved. “Because a sexually transmitted immortality epidemic would be too bloody weird even for us.”  
  
“Anybody got any other questions?” Jack says asks.  
  
They shake their heads.  
  
Leaving them to look at the files, Jack goes to find Ianto.  
  
Ianto is standing at the coffee machine. He doesn't turn round as Jack walks over to him, and there's a resigned slump to his shoulders as he says, “They're angry with me, aren't they?”  
  
“No,” Jack reassures him. “They’re just worried.”  
  
Gripping the edge of the counter, Ianto lets out a slow breath. “About what I am?”  
  
“About you.” Jack steps closer, until they are nearly touching. “They care about you. I care about you.”  
  
Ianto nods, although doesn't look as convinced of it as Jack would like.  
  
By the time the coffee is made, and they've carried it back to the boardroom, Owen, Gwen, and Tosh have finished looking at the files.  
  
“I can try to locate the study data, using some alternative search methods. There might be something that Jack missed,” Tosh says, as Ianto starts handing out the drinks. “The schematics for the cryo units may be somewhere on the system. So even if we can't find the research data, I might be able to reconstruct their likely methodology from what they were using.”  
  
“Thank you.” Ianto smiles gratefully at her.  
  
“And I suppose I'd better give you a full check up,” Owen says, sounding less than enthusiastic about it. “Try and figure out just how weird you really are. Although if Tosh don't find any records, it's going to be waste of time, because I'm need something to compare the results to.”  
  
“I’m not sure what I can do,” Gwen says, sad that she can’t do more to help. “I could probably find out what happened to your family, if you want me to.”  
  
“I know what happened to them.” Ianto sits down next to her. “It was one of the first things I did once I was out of the cryo chamber and cleared for work. My tad died a few months after I was frozen. There are a few distant cousins, but nobody close.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s probably easier like this really,” Ianto says, sounding more like he's trying to convince himself of it than Gwen. “I'm not going to having to see them grow old. Thank you for offering though.”  
  
Jack remains silent while Ianto talks to the rest of the team. He hopes that letting them work together on it like this will prevent any lingering hard feelings about Ianto having been less than honest with them for so long.  
  
“So what do you know about these other freezer geezers then?” Owen says, flicking back through the notes, looking for anything he might have missed.  
  
“Not a great deal,” Ianto admits. “There were only four of us in the twenty year group. There had been another four in each of the five and ten year groups.”  
  
“But there's nothing freaky about them or you'd have said.”  
  
Ianto nods to Owen. “The project was still operational when they completely their research times. If there had been something anomalous with their results I very much doubt that the project would have been shelved in the way it had.”  
  
Jack has to agree with Ianto on this, although it does make finding out what had happened harder. There is no way that a project that had the effect of stopping ageing would have been wound up on account of money.  
  
“Maybe it was an unintentional side effect of being in the chamber for so long,” Tosh suggests, then dismisses the idea as she works through the hypothesis. “Although I would have thought that cryo chambers were designed to work for far longer than twenty five years without such side effects.”  
  
“We don't know for certain that none of the rest of your group haven't had the same problem,” Gwen says, searching for another route of investigation. “We should contact them, make sure they are okay.”  
  
“We can't.” Ianto looks at the table top rather than at the team. “They're all dead.”  
  
“How?” Gwen sounds surprised. “Are you sure?”  
  
“One died in cryo, there had been some kind of energy surge or malfunction through her unit back in the late seventies before the project was shelved. We weren't told any more than that.” He stops and then takes a deep breath. His voice is flat, emotions all pressed down when he continues. “The other two were thawed at the same time as I was and were also given jobs at Torchwood One. They were both amongst the people partially converted during the attack on Torchwood Tower, and were pulled into the void and killed.”  
  
“So we're back to needing the original records then,” Owen says, sounding rather fed up with every route on enquiry being blocked before they even start.  
  
“I don't think we ever really got away from that,” Tosh says. “If the research wasn't on what was left of the London database where do you know where the files might have been stored?”  
  
“If there's nothing on the system then it probably means that the old records where never digitised. A lot of the old paper files were kept off site,” Ianto says rather evasively. “They could be at any number of archives locations. They might have even moved them to the historic archive at Torchwood House. I'm not sure how easy it will be to get to them.”  
  
“Why do I get the feeling there's an 'actually I know how, but I don't like it' in there somewhere,” Jack says, knowing that Ianto is hesitating about something.  
  
“The Future Options Committee will know,” Ianto says not sounding happy about it. “They did a full audit of everything recovered from Torchwood One, well anything that wasn't brought here.”  
  
“So we can ask them,” Gwen says brightly at Ianto. “It'll be okay. We'll sort it this out.” She turns to Jack. “We can just tell them to hand them over, right?”  
  
“It's not that simple,” Ianto says wearily before Jack has had a chance to answer. “They were set up to look into the fall of Torchwood One, whether it should be rebuilt, and if not, how to dispose of its assets.”  
  
Gwen's eyes widen, and she sounds horrified as she repeats, “Dispose of its assets. Oh Ianto, we'd never let them do anything to you.”  
  
Ianto looks baffled for a moment, then realises what Gwen means and says, “Just the artefacts and research. Even they aren't that ruthless.”  
  
“Not anymore, at least,” Jack says, remembering his first encounter with Torchwood. Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy wouldn't have thought twice about it – or it they had it would have only been to decide the most entertaining method of getting rid of him.  
  
“It's all okay then,” Gwen says relieved. “We just ask them for it. I mean we have more right to it than them, don't we? With Ianto having been part of it surely they'll have to let him see his own files?”  
  
“They don't know,” Ianto says, looking down and refusing to make eye contact with any of them. “And I would rather keep it that way. Having to explain why I falsified my personnel file and employment history isn't likely to count in our favour.”  
  
“I could hack into their databases,” Tosh offers. “There are a couple of data mining programs that I've been working on since we encountered Beth Halloran and the other sleepers agents, that I would like to test.”  
  
“I'd prefer to try asking for the information first, rather than running the risk of alerting them to the fact that we're looking into something that we don't want them looking too closely at.” Ianto looks at Jack. “It's not up to me though.”  
  
“If you think they'll listen, I'll give them a call.” Calling Bureaucrats and being nice to them isn't Jack's idea of fun. Especially as in his experience most seem to object to flirting as a negotiation tactic.  
  
“It may be best if I do it, as I am in charge of the archives,” Ianto says. “It would make the request seem less irregular.”  
  
“If you're sure.” Jack doesn’t want Ianto to feel that he has to be the one to do it, but he knows that he does have a valid point. He might not always be the best or easiest boss to work for, but he knows where each of his teams talents lie, and if Ianto can't talk them into handing over the information then he doubts anybody would have any success either.  
  
“I'm sure.”  
  
“Okay, then.” Jack claps his hands together and smiles at them, knowing he seems far more confident about their chances of success like this than he actually feels. “It looks like we've got a plan. Owen you get together whatever you need to run your tests. Tosh, see what the mainframe has got for us. Gwen, can you check the names of the two other test subjects against the personnel files we've got. I want to know if they've got family left behind who might have thought there was something up with their ageing.”  
  
“And Ianto.” Jack moves closer to him. “It's time we gave London a call.”


	3. Chapter 3

Six hours after the meeting in the board room, Jack sits in the small reception of the Future Options Committee, waiting to see Margaret Hughes, a minor backbench minister and person in charge of communications for the FOC.  
  
The call to the FOC had gone reasonably well, although the choice between a meeting at three that day or the next available one was nearly a month away hadn't been ideal. There's been no question of making Ianto wait weeks for even the chance of an answer, so after giving Owen enough time to run his tests, they'd driven to London.  
  
Bored, Jack wanders over to the window. Housed on one of the upper floors a modern office block on the edge of the docklands, he knows, that if it were still standing, they would be able to see the towering glass and steel structure of Torchwood Tower. As it is, the skyline has a conspicuously empty space.  
  
Ianto remains seated on the only chair that doesn't give him a view of the window, trying to occupy his mind by reading the obligatory out of date National Geographic magazine that seems to feature in all waiting rooms. Including, Jack thinks with an amused smile, waiting rooms that aren't even on Earth.  
  
It's about the only thing that even slightly funny since they left Cardiff.  
  
The drive had been difficult. As while the traffic had been relatively light, and with even the M25 being something like mobile, Ianto had become quieter and more tense the nearer they'd got to the capital. By the time they'd left the motorway and begun threading their way through North East London he'd been silent, eyes distant, his hands clenched tightly in his lap.  
  
Jack's train of thought is interrupted by Margaret Hughes' PA, who's sitting behind the reception desk, saying, “The minister will see you now.”  
  
Walking in, Ianto just behind him, Jack smiles broadly and holds out his hand. “Captain Jack Harkness. Pleased to meet you.”  
  
From behind her desk, Margaret Hughes looks him up and down, her gaze rather disdainful. “Am I detaining you from an urgent fancy dress party?”  
  
“No, I always dress like this.”  
  
“I see.” She opens a folder on her desk. “Personally I find most of the military overbearing, and people who persist in faux military dress and titles after they leave the service pompous and with an over inflated sense of their own self worth.” She looks at him over the top of her glasses. “And you, Captain Harkness, do little to dispel that.”  
  
“When it makes you look this good, why change it?”  
  
“Well what is it you want?” Margaret asks sharply. “I’m very busy, and I have to attend parliament in less than an hour.”  
  
“We’d like the files for a cryogenics project that ran from the seventies to the nineties. It was one of Dr Montgomery’s projects if that helps.”  
  
“Not really.” Pressing the intercom on her desk, she says, “Marcus, find out where the files for research projects are stored. And be quick about it, I’d like them gone as soon as possible.”  
  
“We’re still here,” Jack says, starting to get annoyed at her attitude. She might be having a bad day, but theirs, he can almost guarantee, is worse.  
  
“Yes, you are.”  
  
“You don’t like us, I get it, but…”Jack begins.  
  
“What Jack is trying to say,” Ianto interjects smoothly, moving between Jack and Margaret. “Is that with the Cardiff office providing most, if not all, of the containment capability that Torchwood currently has, that allowing access to the cryogenics units and the associated research would be useful.”  
  
Jack has to hide a smile. Ianto in persuasive bureaucrat mode is something else, seven years of Torchwood One and dealing with Yvonne Hartman have honed it to an art.  
  
“With a general election just round the corner there will, I'm sure, be pressure to present a progress report on how the assets of Torchwood are being used. And in the these budget conscious times we wouldn't want to have the expense of purchasing the components for new units, constructing them, and running the associated study of their effectiveness when there are some already available.”  
  
“Well, no,” the minister starts to say when she is interrupted by Marcus on the intercom.  
  
“The files are at the Alwych office, and the cryo units themselves, if they still exist, can be found at the Richmond depot.”  
  
“Thank You, Marcus.”  
  
“You seem very organised here.”  
  
“We try our best, despite budget issues, that you at least seem to understand.” She gives Ianto something approaching as smile.  
  
“Think of this as the start of a new era of cooperation between the Future Options Committee and the remaining branches of Torchwood.”  
  
“Cooperation goes both ways.”  
  
“Quite. We are on a rather tight schedule, given the staffing levels in Cardiff, I'm sure you understand,” Ianto says smoothly, “So we would greatly appreciate it if we could view the archives and artefact storage facilities today.”  
  
“It's late afternoon, Mr Jones,” she says, tapping her watch. “I suggest that you view the records today and the artefacts tomorrow. The Richmond storage facility isn't open after five.”  
  
“I'm sure they can make an exception for us,” Jack says, smiling at her. “I can be very persuasive.”  
  
“It's covert storage. Although from what I've heard about your operation in Cardiff I doubt that you know what that means.” Folding her arms, she gives the impression that nothing that they can say will change her mind. “Is there a reason why this is suddenly so urgent?”  
  
Without missing a beat, Ianto says, “It's because of the Rift activity cycles. We could only spare the two of us today because it's in a quiet phase.”  
  
“I see. Unfortunately that still doesn't change anything.”  
  
“Alright, we get it,” Jack says getting up from his seat. “Ianto, come on we'd better get going. Don't want to arrive after closing time, do we?”  
  
“If you want anything in future,” Margaret says to them as they leave. “I suggest that you send any requests via Mr Jones, as he at least seems to understand that there should be some kind of protocol to these matters.”  
  
She nods at Jack, and then shakes Ianto's hand. “If you ever consider a transfer to London, ask and I will see that your application is properly considered.”  
  
“I've already worked in London,” Ianto says, the fake bureaucratic warmth slipping to something colder, although still as tightly controlled.  
  
“Then why ever did you leave? Cardiff is hardly the best place to further your career.”  
  
“Staying in London wasn't viable. Not after what happened.”  
  
“Happened?” Margaret gives him a look that is as puzzled as it is irritated.  
  
“The fall of Torchwood One. The thing that meant you have a job here,” Ianto says blandly. “It's hard to continue working somewhere when your place of employment is obliterated along with ninety percent of you co-workers.”  
  
“You were there?” she asks, surprised.  
  
“I was a junior archivist.” The calm in his voice and eyes is icy now. “I spent much of the initial attack stuck in the secure archives due to the automatic lockdown procedures. It's the reason why fifteen of the twenty seven survivors where archivists or researchers.”  
  
The fact that Ianto is willing to use some of his most painful memories like this, to manipulate or just to prove a point, Jack finds rather disturbing, mainly because he's not sure it does hurt Ianto anymore. He doesn't want him to be tormented by the things that have happened to him, but the idea that he's so inured to the pain that it no longer even registers as something beyond the norm, he finds, worries him more.  
  
  
“Yet you remained in Torchwood's employ.” She sounds impressed. “Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a position back in London? With dedication like yours you could go far.”  
  
“Very sure.” Ianto turns slightly so that he's looking at Jack more than at the minister. “There are people in Cardiff who I'd miss, and who would, I believe, miss me.”  
  
Putting his hand on Ianto's back, Jack can feel him shaking. It's very slight, only something he'd find by touch rather than sight. “You’d better believe it.”  
  
Walking with them to the door of her office, Margaret calls out to her PA, “Marcus, provide them passes and direction to the Aldwych offices and the Richmond depot. And tell Ida to expect them shortly.”  
  
Once they've got the passes from Marcus, and have left the suite of offices belonging to the Future Options committee, Jack says, “I don't think she liked me.”  
  
There's the hint of a smile on Ianto's lips. “Whatever gave you that idea?”  
  
“She liked you though.”  
  
“She was meant to. Which was why I told her about working Torchwood One. Give her some of the truth, and she won't feel the need to go looking for anything else.” He shrugs and then pushes his hands into his pockets. “She's just like how all senior management at One used to be, concerned with appearing to keep to the rules and with getting their name known.”  
  
“You didn't like her then?”  
  
“Like has nothing to do with it.” Stopping he looks Jack in the eye, and says, “We can't remain cut off from London, or barely on speaking terms with Glasgow, not forever.”  
  
“We manage fine without them.” Today’s meeting with Margaret Hughes had just been a reminder of just why he hates dealing with politicians.  
  
“For now we do,” Ianto says quietly. “But I've been thinking, what if something happened to Cardiff, another Abbadon? Or the Rift just snatched up the whole Hub, if we disappeared like Four did? The Rift would still need monitoring, it would have to be rebuilt, and we need them to realise how important what we do there is, so they don’t cut us off.”  
  
“Alright,” Jack agrees rather reluctantly. It's true, but he supposed he's never really given it too much thought until now. Until 1999 it wasn't a problem, Alex had kept in contact with London and Glasgow, so he didn’t need to do it. After that there had been little left in Cardiff, just himself and the Hub, but he'd managed okay, it had just been a matter of recruiting the right people. And with Tosh, Owen, Gwen and Ianto on his team he knows he’s found the right ones. He doesn’t want anything to come along and change that.  
  
The conversation about the survivors of Torchwood One sticks in Jack’s mind, and as they reach the lift, he says, “What did happen to them?”  
  
“Who?” Ianto asks distractedly, starting to look exhausted now that they've secured what they came to get.  
  
“The twenty seven.” Jack knows that they survived, that was in the final report. What happened to them afterwards is probably available somewhere, but Jack hasn't until now really thought about finding out.  
  
Ianto leans back against the wall of the lift. “Some opted for retcon. Some went to work for UNIT. One, I think, went into MI5 as some kind of analyst or code breaker. And some, I imagine, are still in hospital or rehabilitation centres. A few died.”  
  
Jack wonders if it’s because of injuries or whether they couldn't live with what they'd seen, and retcon had failed to rectify that.  
  
“Four,” Ianto says eyes down cast. “Well four that I know about any way. Derek was the oldest of us that survived. He’d stayed past retirement, he said trying to catalogue the artefacts kept his mind working. He had a heart attack six months ago.”  
  
“He was a friend then?” Jack asks, seeing the loss in Ianto’s eyes.  
  
“Derek was head of the section seven secure archives, so he was my boss.” Ianto smiles wanly. “But he was a good friend too. He had so many stories of London in the sixties, when he arrived here from Jamaica.”  
  
It’s the most Jack has heard Ianto talk about his previous colleagues and he says, “It was a pretty good time to be in London.”  
  
Ianto smiles again, a little happier this time. “I think it was the culture shock aspect of it that spoke to me most, he’d left working on fishing boats in Kingston to work in the port of London. I’d gone to sleep in 1973 and woke in 1999. I made me realise that I could adjust too, and how lucky I was. I had a home, a job for life, and somebody who loved me. He’d had it so much harder when he’d arrived and still made a go of it.”  
  
Putting an arm around Ianto’s shoulders, Jack says, “I’m glad you had somebody to talk to, finding a friend like that when you’re out of your time, it makes a hell of a difference.”  
  
He nods, looking thoughtful. “It really did.”  
  
They fall in to silence as they leave the lift, a combination of losing the privacy the lift had provided and thoughts of just what they might find at the archives.  
  
“Why now?” Ianto asks as they reach the car.  
  
Jack presses a button on the key fob to unlock the car. “Why now, what?”  
  
“Asking about the survivors?” Ianto gets in to the front passenger seat. His voice is weary, but not accusatory as he continues. “You didn't care when you found out there were only twenty seven survivors. So why now?”  
  
It seems a little heartless on the face of things, and he finds that he doesn't want Ianto to think of him like that, even if sometimes it's the truth. “Honestly,” Jack says getting into the car beside Ianto. “I was angry.”  
  
“That they survived?” Ianto looks confused.  
  
“No.” Jack starts the engine, and pushes the car into gear with more force than is necessary. “I was angry at Torchwood One, at the management there for opening the void. For getting Rose killed.”  
  
“I'm sorry,” Ianto says, looking down at his hands rather than at Jack. “I didn't know you'd lost somebody there.”  
  
“I didn't. Well I did, but she'd not dead,” Jack clarifies as they moves out into the slow moving traffic of central London. “Rose is in a parallel Earth, cut off from this one forever, or so I'm told.”  
  
“The Doctor,” Ianto says his tone carefully neutral.  
  
“Yes. It was probably the best piece of news I got while I was away.” And that pretty much summed up the Year That Never Was, when one of the best thing that happened, apart from it ending, was getting told you'd never be able to see one of your friends again.  
  
Ianto is quiet for a moment, and then says, “Did she really go to a parallel world, or was she taken by the void?”  
  
“If the Doctor says Rose is there, she's there.” Jack knows his relationship with the Doctor is far from simple and there is some lingering hurt there, but he know that he'd never lie about that. Rose had been too special to them both for that to ever happen. “The Doctor's not the kind of guy to spare your feelings.”  
  
“If Rose went there, could some of the missing have gone there too?” Ianto asks hopefully. “I mean they could still be alive, couldn't they?”  
  
Jack grips the wheel a little tighter, hating what he has to do next. “I'm sorry. Rose was the only one. Her father, parallel world father, came to get her at the last moment, or she would have been taken too.”  
  
Ianto nods. The hope that had been in his face gone, replaced by a loss that Jack knows he's not going to be able to relieve.  
  
Ianto is quiet on the drive to Aldwych, his willingness to talk replaced by sadness for everything that he’s lost.  
  
* * *  
  
The Aldwych office proves to be a substantial portion of St Catherine's House, a sprawling Victorian building which once housed the national records office. Just a small brass plate by the door engraved with 'FOC, by Royal appointment' lets them knows that they've found the right building.  
  
Pressing the intercom by the door, Jack waits for a response. After a couple of minutes, and there’s no reply, he presses it again.  
  
“Alright, I’m coming,” says a woman’s voice with a rather strong Glaswegian accent. A few moments later the door is opened by a young women wearing a lab coat adorned with a few dozen buttons which mostly proclaim punk isn't dead, her corn-rowed hair dyed bright primary colours.  
  
“Ida Adoyo.” She holds out her hand.  
  
“Captain Jack Harkness.”  
  
“Ianto Jones.”  
  
“I was told to expect a military type and a suit.” She indicates for them to follow her inside. “You really aren’t anything like what I had in mind.”  
  
Ida is nothing like Jack had expected either. Somehow when you get told there's an archivist called Ida, you get images of tweed skirts, blue rinse hair, and library 'no talking' signs. “Not disappointed?” he asks.  
  
“Hardly,” she says with a laugh. “I was beginning to think I was the only one under fifty who worked for the FOC.”  
  
“We’re not FOC. We’re Torchwood.”  
  
“Same difference, isn't it?” She closes the door behind them. “I worked with old Archie for a year or so back in Glasgow. Drove each other crazy.”  
  
“Archie has that affect on people,” Jack says with a smile. He glances at Ianto, who's not really made any effort to join the conversation. He appears calm, perhaps relieved that he's not having to salvage the situation as he'd had to do with Margaret Hughes.  
  
Turning back to Ida, Jack asks, “So what do you do here?”  
  
“Pretty much everything,” Ida says, leading them through the maze of corridors. “I’m the only one who works here. Mostly it's getting the files into some kind of usable order, and trying to conserve the stuff that's fire or water damaged.”  
  
She stops by a door. “I fished out the files you wanted, they’re mostly okay, just a bit mixed up. I think they are all here, but I’ve not had time to check.”  
  
Relieved that it’s very unlikely that Ida would have seen Ianto’s name on any of the paperwork by accident, Jack says, “Thanks.”  
  
“You two okay if I leave you to it?” Ida asks, opening the door, but not going inside. “Only I've got a load of fire damaged stuff I was prepping.  
  
“And you want to get it finished?” Ianto says finally joining the conversation. “I know that feeling. An archivist's work is never done.”  
  
She laughs then says, “Cool. If you need me, I'm three doors down on the left. And tell me when you're going to go. Don't want to leave you locked in for the night by mistake. Did that to Archie once, back in Glasgow. Don't think the old goat has ever forgiven me.”  
  
Once Ida has gone they turn their attention to the files.  
  
A dozen boxes have been places across three tables that are, along with a couple of chairs, the only furniture in the room. Stacked in them is a jumble of old brown cardboard folders, box files, scraps of carbon paper, loose pieces of ordinary paper, and a few antiquated five and a quarter inch floppy discs from the early eighties.  
  
“We're going to be here for days,” Ianto says looking at them with a rather defeated expression. He picks up one of the discs. “Do we even have anything with us to read this?”  
  
“It might not take as long as you think,” Jack says producing a small, metal device from his coat pocket.  
  
“That's the data scanner.” Ianto looks surprised. “It wasn't so long ago you said no taking alien tech outside the Hub.”  
  
“I said no taking it home.” Jack smiles. “If it makes you feel any better I've left a note saying that we've taken it out of the Hub.”  
  
“We have an artefact signing out book now?” Ianto sounds rather sceptical at the concept, or possibly at the idea that anybody will remember to use it.  
  
“Not exactly,” Jack admits. “More of a post-it on my desk, but it's the thought that counts, right?”  
  
Ianto give him a rather despairing look, and then says, “Do we know what the capacity on it is?”  
  
“No.” Jack hands the device to Ianto. “Tosh gave it a thorough testing though – we had the whole of Cardiff University’s technical library on there at one point.”  
  
Even with the scanner it takes some time to work through all the paperwork. As although it had worked incredibly fast on printed material on neat, numbered pages, dealing with the often hand written notes, carbon paper copies and jumbled sheets of paper had slowed it down.  
  
There is the temptation to start reading what they've got right now, but if they do that Jack knows that they'll not have enough time to get it all copied before it's time for the archives to close.  
  
Eventually though, Ianto tucks the alien book reader back into his pocket, saying, “That's the last of it.”  
  
“There's no point in driving back to Cardiff tonight,” Jack says looking at the clock. “I'd only have to drive back tomorrow to look at the storage facility.”  
  
“You want to stay overnight?” Ianto asks, as he starts to pack the files back into their boxes.  
  
“I was thinking **we** could stay.” Jack gets a little closer to him. “I know this hotel, great beds.”  
  
Ianto looks at him, surprised. “We'd be staying as a couple?”  
  
“Well I wasn't planning on single beds,” Jack says unable to keep the hurt from his voice. Ianto has never given him any indication that he's not happy with people knowing about their relationship. “That's not a problem, is it?”  
  
“No.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I didn't mean it like that. I just don't want you doing it because you feel sorry for me.”  
  
“I'm doing this,” Jack says, putting his arms around Ianto. “Because I've spent the last couple of hours watching you shed bits of clothing.” He nods towards Ianto's suit jacket hung neatly over the back of a chair, and then towards the tie that coiled on the table top. “And I'd like to help you get out of the rest of it.”  
  
Ianto smiles, although there's a hollowness behind it that Jack hates to see, and then says, “It's good to know some things don't change.”  
  
“Yeah.” Jack wonders if Ianto knows that it's stopped just being about the sex to him. The sex is good bordering on the fantastic, and honestly the idea of Ianto remaining young, fit and attractive is appealing, but that's only a small part of it.  
  
Ianto has become a strong, silent present in his life. He understands the hard choices, knows what they cost, they are so much stronger together than they are apart. Once, Jack knows, he would have considered himself a gullible fool for thinking like this, now he's certain he's the luckiest man in the world.  
  
“What are we going to do about the files?” Ianto says gesturing at the boxes.  
  
There is, Jack knows, that now they’ve asked for these files, the possibility that somebody high up in the FOC might become curious as to their contents. “We can take them back to the Hub.”  
  
Ianto considers the boxes for a moment and then says, “They aren’t all going to fit in the car.”  
Jack wishes that they’d been able to take the SUV rather than Ianto’s car; space wouldn’t have been an issue then. But leaving Owen, Tosh and Gwen without it really hadn’t been an option. A lot of the things they’ve transported in the back of the SUV you really wouldn’t want in your car.  
  
“We could call Harwoods,” Ianto says thoughtfully. “As long as the boxes are all sealed up, I don’t think anyone is likely to be too curious.”  
  
“Rhys’ haulage company?” Since the incident with the space whale, Gwen’s refusal to retcon him, and the Nostrovites at the wedding Jack is as sure as he can be about Rhys’ ability not to tell everybody about what Torchwood does.  
  
“Or we could hire a van,” he says rather more doubtfully.  
  
Given how distracted Ianto had been on the way to London, Jack really doesn’t like the idea of them being into separate vehicles for the drive back. “Rhys it is then.”  
  
It only takes a few minutes to get through to Gwen to ask her for Rhys' number, and to tell her that they are staying in London overnight.  
  
Contacting Rhys takes slightly longer, but eventually they arrange for the files to be collected the next day, Rhys agreeing to do the pickup himself, as he'd got to drive up to Croydon with a load of machine parts any way.  
  
Finding the room where Ida is working isn’t difficult, the sound of Sham 69’s If the Kids are United audible even with the door closed.  
  
“You find what you wanted then?” Ida asks, turning down the volume on her CD player, as they let themselves in to the small lab.  
  
“Maybe,” Ianto says, looking at the piles of sealed clear plastic bags containing files charred around the edges which are stacked on a work bench than runs along one wall. “There's too much to read through today. We’re going to need to send the files to Cardiff so that we can look at the data properly. We'll return them once we’ve finished.”  
  
“You’re taking them with you now?” Ida asks surprised.  
  
“No,” he says sounding a little distant as he walks over to the papers.  
  
“We're sending a guy to pick them up tomorrow afternoon. Rhys Williams,” Jack says, taking control of the conversation, as he sees Ianto's growing discomfort at the smoke blackened files, their presence a reminder of the fires that had broken out in the archives of Torchwood One during the battle.  
  
Putting a hand on his lovers arm, Jack says, “We'd better go. The hotel room isn't going to book itself.”  
  
Ianto blinks, and turns away from the files, before saying a little distractedly, “Of course. Yes.”  
  
“You alright?” Ida asks, looking curiously at him. “Only you look a bit out if it.”  
  
“Tired.” Ianto nods. “I'm just tired. It was long drive from Cardiff.”  
  
“Right.” She doesn't sound convinced, but doesn't question it saying, “I don't suppose you can give me any better idea of when this Rhys bloke is turning up?”  
  
“Not really. I could get him to give you call when he's nearly here,” Jack suggests as they walk back through the building, still keeping Ianto close to him.  
  
“You need anything, give me a call,” Ida says as they reach the door.  
  
Following Ianto back to their car, Jack thinks that maybe closer relations with London wouldn't be so bad after all, providing it’s with people like Ida rather than Margaret Hughes.


	4. Chapter 4

The Empress of India Hotel is located in a side street in one of London's more affluent areas. The smart late Victorian architecture, the well maintained appearance and the uniformed footman at the door give the impression of opulence even before they get inside.  
  
“We're staying here?” Ianto asks in surprise, as Jack parks the car outside.  
  
“Oh yeah. Me and this place go way back.” It's been years since he was last there, not since the last major UNIT Torchwood conference in the early 80's, before things got rather more frosty between them.  
  
Walking round to the back of the car, they get their bags and laptop out of the boot. Keeping a change of clothes in their car and at the Hub had become routine long ago for Torchwood staff – there were too many incidents where you couldn’t or didn’t want to wear what you had on, and going naked really wasn’t an option.  
  
The interior doesn't disappoint. Lights that mimic gas lamps on the wall, polished tiles floors and dark wooden furniture give it the appearance of Victorian gentlemans club. It almost seems as if nothing has changed since the last time he was there. He knows that's not the case though, if it really was exactly the same he'd be looking for some kind of temporal disturbance by now, and not talking to the rather cute guy behind the reception desk.  
  
The receptionist quickly deals with their booking, and hands Jack the key card to their room.  
  
“Torchwood has a long standing account here,” Jack says as they carry their bags into the lift. “It's been the hotel of choice for holding meetings and treaties that needed to stay under the radar.”  
  
“Well whoever chose this place had very good taste.” Ianto looks at the decorative wood and brass panels in the lift. “I hate to think how much all this costs.”  
  
“It's no more than you're worth,” Jack says as the lift begins to move. “Plus I know we can talk here about anything we want without being overheard.”  
  
Curious now, Ianto asks, “How can you be so sure?”  
  
The lift arrives at their floor, and Jack says, “Because every room has its own sound dampening field.” Jack double checks their room number, and points down the corridor. “This way.”  
  
Following Jack towards their room, Ianto says, “You don't seem to mind very much that they are using alien tech.”  
  
Stopping outside their room, Jack says, “It's not really all that alien any more. We supplied UNIT with a few basic schematics back in the seventies and the rest is, as they say, history.”  
  
Inside is a large, brass framed double bed, green leather wing backed chairs either side of the fireplace, and the vintage dressing table in front of the bay window gives the room a feel of timeless elegance.  
  
Leaving Ianto to look around, Jack puts their bags into the wardrobe, and hangs his coat on the back of the door.  
  
Turning back he finds Ianto standing at the window looking out at the rain blurred city lights, his expression lost and sad.  
  
Walking over to him, Jack asks, “What's wrong?”  
  
“I'm going to be as out of time as this room is one day,” Ianto says quietly, still looking out at the city. “Unless the team can do something about it.”  
  
Standing behind him so that his chest is against his back, Jack says, “Do you want them to?”  
  
“I don't know.” Sighing he leans back. “I want to have a normal life, well as much as working for Torchwood will allow. But then I look at you, and all I can think is how selfish I'm being.”  
  
“Selfish?” It's not the word he would have used. Because if he were offered the chance of mortality he's pretty certain that he'd grab it with both hands and refuse to let go.  
  
“Yes, selfish.” He turns his head so that he's looking at Jack. “I know how much losing people hurts you. How can I force another loss on you just because I'm afraid of living too long?”  
  
“Oh Ianto.” Putting his arms around him, Jack holds him tight. He really doesn't know what he can say to make it better, or if, in fact, there actually is anything that can. He can't even deny what Ianto has said. Losing people hurts, and it doesn't seem to matter how long he's lived, the pain of knowing he'll never see someone again, never have them in his life doesn't get any easier.  
  
What he'd seen happen during the year that never was has only reinforced how badly he's going to take the deaths of any of his team. Owen current undead state is a constant reminder of how far he'll go to try not to go through that loss again.  
  
Feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, Jack turns Ianto in his arms and kisses him.  
  
As much as he wants to tell himself that this is just about letting Ianto know that whatever decision he comes to it'll be okay, deep down though Jack knows that this is about wanting reassurance for himself that whatever happens in the future that at this moment he's not alone  
  
It takes a moment for Ianto to kiss back, and when he does it's far from enthusiastic. Realising that his lover's heart really isn't in it, he stops.  
  
“Sorry,” Ianto says, eyes downcast. “I'm just not in the mood.”  
  
“That's okay.” Sure he's disappointed, but he'd rather have honesty right now than continue when his lover has his mind somewhere else.  
  
Reluctantly, Jack lets go of him. Relieved that he feels a little more in control of his own emotions, he picks up his coat, saying, “How about we go out, get some food? You could show me where you used to go.”  
  
“No.” Ianto sits down on the bed, looking like he got no intention of going anywhere.  
  
“No?” Putting his coat back down, Jack asks, “Do you mean you're not hungry or that there's nowhere you like?”  
  
“Both.” Ianto loosens his tie, and then opens the laptop case on the bed next to him.  
  
“I'm not buying that,” Jack says sitting down next to him. “One or the other, maybe. But not both. And I seem to remember you feeding most of your lunch to the pigeons. So I would have thought you'd be hungry by now.”  
  
Turning away from him, Ianto switches on the laptop, saying, “Well I'm not.”  
  
“This isn't about me saying you'd put on weight, is it?”  
  
“What?” Ianto sounds annoyed at Jack's constant interruptions. “When did you say that?”  
  
“When you asked me if you'd changed.”  
  
“No,” Ianto snaps. “You really think I'm that shallow?”  
  
Jack sighs, and then says, “I'm trying to help here, but you've got to give me something to work with, okay?”  
  
Ianto glares at him. “Alright, fine. My stomach feels like it's tying itself in knots because I'm so fucking scared about what has happened to me, what might still happen.” He gets up and starts pacing. “So will you stop bothering me, and let me try to find out what they did to me. Because an answer, whatever it is, is the only thing that's going to make me feel any better, okay?”  
  
The fact that he’s actually sworn at him is, Jack knows, a measure of incredibly stressed Ianto still is. “If it's what you want, I will,” Jack says knowing that he's going to have to take a step back, even if he hates doing it, because if he doesn't he might just screw things up with Ianto to a point where they are going to be hard to fix.  
  
“Thank you. If you're hungry, get yourself something, you don't have to wait for me,” Ianto says, settling in one of the armchairs, the laptop on his knee. “I'm going to send the scans through to Tosh.”  
  
Despite Ianto telling him he's not hungry Jack orders room service for them both, and he does eventually eat some of the food.  
  
Once the files are sent via the heavily encrypted connection that Tosh has set up between them and the mainframe, Ianto turns his attention to reading through them himself.  
  
Jack supposes he could, as Ianto's boss, order him to share the information. But here in a hotel room and sharing the same bed it's harder than ever to draw any distinction between their working and personal lives.  
  
Although he'd called this a case when they'd told the rest of the team, Jack really can't bring himself to think of it as such. Ianto had been honest with him in the end, sparing himself nothing to relate what must have been painful memories and facts. He just has to hope that he'll choose to do the same with the information gained here.  
  
Getting a book out of his bag, Jack sits down on the bed to read, hoping that Ianto will decide to share what he finds sooner rather than later.  
  
Jack realises he must have dozed off at some point when the book he was reading falls from his hand on to the polished wood floor with a thud.  
  
The space in bed beside him is empty and Jack peers around the darkened room. In the faint light from the street lamps outside filtering in through the partially drawn curtains Jack can see the glint of the golden hands on the carriage clock on the mantle over the fire, it reads two twenty.  
  
Still sitting in the armchair, barely illuminated by the dim light in the grate, Ianto is asleep, the laptop still balanced on his knees.  
  
Shaking his head, Jack gets out of bed. Picking up the laptop, he powers it down before placing it on the floor.  
  
Turning his attention back to Ianto, Jack shakes his shoulder gently saying, “Time for bed.”  
  
Half asleep, Ianto nods and then gets to his feet. He shuffles the few steps to the bed, then lies down on top of the covers still fully dressed, and is almost instantly asleep.  
  
Watching him for a moment, Jack decides against waking him again so that he can get undressed, opting instead to just remove his tie and shoes for him.  
  
Climbing back in bed beside him, Jack lies in the dark, listening to the sound of Ianto breathing and the traffic outside in the city, and tries not to think about what failing to find any answers tomorrow will mean for them.  
  
Although he hadn’t intended to fall asleep again, Jack realises that he had when he’s woken by the sound of somebody trying to be quiet as they move about the room.  
  
Switching on the bedside light, he can see Ianto helping himself to a drink from the mini bar.  
  
Ianto jumps as the light comes on, spilling the drink he’s pouring. Putting the bottle down, he grips the edge of the table, hunched shoulders shaking. His voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.”  
  
Wishing that he had, rather than try to tough it out alone, Jack gets out of bed. Walking over to him, he asks, “Nightmare?”  
  
“Not exactly,” Ianto rubs his eyes, red with lack of sleep and recently shed tears. “It's mostly just memories.”  
  
Jack gives him a questioning look.  
  
“It’s being back in London, seeing all those places again.” He hangs his head, breathing growing ragged. “I thought I'd be able to manage.”  
  
“You seem like you're managing pretty well to me,” Jack says, moving in close to him and putting his arms around his shoulders. It’s not exactly the truth, as he knows how hard everything must be for him right now. But he’s coping far better than anybody should be expected to. He’d held his own with Margaret Hughes, and if Jack’s honest about it, got them a better result than he’d have managed on his own.  
  
Ianto makes a noise that Jack takes to mean that he disagrees.  
  
Resting his chin on the top of Ianto's head, Jack holds him a little tighter, and then says, “Do you want to tell me about it?”  
  
“No,” he says miserably. “It won’t help. It won’t change the past, and it won’t make me feel any better. Nothing can. Because everybody I knew here is dead.”  
  
Jack sighs, but says nothing. Telling him it will get better with time is, even if it is to some extent true, still too hurtful to hear at the moment, when the reality of what Ianto is facing means that losing everybody you know and love could become a recurrent, inescapable part of life.  
  
Leaning forward against him isn't the most comfortable of position to hold, and when after a few more minutes he hasn't spoken, Jack says, “Come back to bed.”  
  
Sighing, Ianto closes his eyes. “I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep.”  
  
“You should try.” There have been a few occasions since they started sleeping together when Ianto has woken beside him, sweating, shaking, terror clear on his face.  
  
Jack knows all about nightmares, and he knows Ianto has seen him in a similar state often enough, especially in the first few weeks after arriving back at Torchwood, the events of the Year that Never Was weighing heavily on his mind.  
  
Sighing again, Ianto nods, and then gets up.  
  
It only takes a few moments for him to shed the rest of his clothes, and then join Jack in bed.  
  
Holding Ianto close, Jack stays awake, guarding his sleep until morning, just a few short hours away.


	5. Chapter 5

The storage facility is a complex of large storage units near Richmond, on the western edge of London. From the outside it gives the appearance of being a distribution centre for a retail firm, however closer inspection reveals that the single security guard on the on the gate isn't as alone or unarmed as he appears to be.  
  
The security guard, after checking ID and calling through to somebody in the main complex for confirmation that they are expected, hands them visitor badges, and lets them in, telling them they can leave the car in the staff car park.  
  
They are met in the car park by another member of security staff. The guy, who’s in his fifties, looks at home with the gun on his belt, and Jack suspects that he’s ex military.  
  
“Jim Haynes,” he says, shaking their hands. “So you’re the blokes who deal with this weird stuff.”  
  
“That’s us,” Jack says, relieved that they appear to have a no nonsense Yorkshire man rather than some jobsworth minister to show them around.  
  
Unfortunately it is just going to be a case of being shown around the storage facility. Moving the files back to Cardiff had been one thing, taking whole cryo units with them is another, and Jack knows that it will raise questions if they do so without telling the FOC. So even if they do find what they are looking for, it’ll have to be an inspection and maybe a few pictures to send back to the Hub so they can be run through the mainframes visual database for matches.  
  
“So what are you looking for then?” Jim asks.  
  
“Twelve person sized cryogenics chambers used in a research project in the ‘70s.”  
  
Jim thinks for a minute, before saying, “Right-o, big stuff then.”  
  
“Does knowing the size of it help then?” Ianto asks.  
  
“Yep. All the large stuff got put in those two,” he jerks his thumb towards a pair of long, low warehouse structures. Pointing at the others buildings, he says, “Smaller stuff that would fit in metre square packing crates went into that one, and really fragmented bits got shoved into smaller boxes in there.”  
  
It’s not the best filing system that Jack’s heard of, but he supposes that at least it gives them a starting point.  
  
“What’s in that one?” Ianto asks, indicating the smallest of the buildings, which is set in the centre of the group.  
  
“Office, canteen, CCTV monitoring, bogs,” he says, sounding like he’d rather he inside there, probably in the canteen, than out here in the cold talking to them. “Basically anything that goes on around here that’s not storage, so if you want a cuppa or owt while you’re here, that’s where you want to go.”  
  
“That’s good to know,” Ianto says with a slight smile. “But we’d better get started.”  
  
“Okay then, follow me.” Jim walks off towards the two large warehouses.  
  
Stopping by the door, he takes out a wipes a key card through a reader. For a moment nothing happens, and then the door slides open.  
  
“Oh god,” Ianto says softly, horror in his eyes as looks at the vast open plan space filled with alien artefacts from Torchwood One.  
  
Many things have noticeable scorch marks or blast damage, the burnt ozone smell of energy weapons fire still clinging to them, all these years later.  
  
Ianto closes his eyes, hands balling into fists at his sides. There's a look of intense concentration on his face, which makes Jack realise that it's taking him a conscious effort to take long, slow breaths rather than give in to panic.  
  
“You want to get some air?” Jack asks once Ianto seems a little more in control.  
  
“No.” There's a tremor in his voice. “Because if I leave now I'm not going to come back in.”  
  
Jack carefully puts a hand on Ianto's arm, trying not to startle him. “Maybe that's for the best.”  
  
Ianto opens his eyes. Determination cutting through the fear. “I need to do this.”  
  
“Is he going to be alright?” Jim asks once Ianto has gone in ahead of them.  
  
Jack watches Ianto for a moment, then says, “I hope so. I really do.”  
  
They walk slowly from one row of artefacts to the next, relying on Ianto's memories of what the cryo chambers look like to identify them.  
  
Much of what is there, as far as Jack can tell, even without closer inspection, is damaged beyond repair. There are a few good pieces that he makes a note of to try to requisition later. Although he knows that much of what was any use to them was salvaged by Owen, Tosh and himself at the time.  
  
They've been there about an hour when the guard, who's been watching Ianto's reactions with a mixture of curiosity and concern, says, “You were there, weren't you?”  
  
Jack gives him a look that he hopes he'll understand as 'you don't have to answer that.'  
  
Ianto nods slightly, an indication that he's understood, then, turning to the security guard says, “Yes, I was.”  
  
“I thought so,” the guard says, stopping in front of a twisted pile of metal that might once have been some kind of alien storage device or maybe just really mangled vending machine. “I know that look. It was a rough clean up.”  
  
He frowns then continues. “I wasn't there for the start of it, only once they were clearing out the lower levels and stores. It looked like hell in there.” He shakes his head. “They shouldn't have sent civvies in for that clean up.”  
  
“It was hell,” Ianto says, sounding distant, his eyes a little unfocused as past horrors play themselves out behind them. “It was the screaming that was the worst. It was all around you, but you couldn't see where it was coming from. And when you finally did, you wished you hadn't, because you’ll never be able to forget. There was so much blood.” His voice drops to a shocked whisper. “People have so much blood in them. It gets everywhere.”  
  
“Shit,” Jim says under his breath, then turns to Jack with an annoyed expression. “I wasn't one to give officers back chat when I was enlisted, sir. And I'm not now, but what the bloody hell were you thinking bringing him in here?”  
  
“It was my idea,” Ianto says, still sounding rather distant and disconnected. “It’s no one’s fault.”  
  
Ignoring the guard, Jack puts a hand on Ianto’s back. He can feel him shaking. “Do you want to go?”  
  
“No.” Leaning into the touch, he takes several deep, shuddering breaths, and slowly the trembling lessens, although it doesn’t completely disappear.  
  
“You’ve got nothing to prove, not to me.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Then why?”  
  
“I'm working with the idea that after living through that I'm not likely to see worse,” Ianto says with a tight smile, which Jack knows means that the subject is no longer up for discussion. “So whatever happens now I know I can somehow get through it in the end.”  
  
Jim nods, sad and understanding. “I hope that works out for you, lad. I really do.”  
  
Despite the haunted look in his eyes, and the fact that Jack can see he's still periodically shaking, Ianto stubbornly continues with the search.  
  
After four hours of looking through the debris and not finding anything, followed by a brief tea break and another couple of hours scouring the lists that describe what the fragmentary remains in the other warehouse look like, they admit defeat.  
  
The single mention that they find about the cryo units is on door plaque, which lists what was kept in the room behind it. It had, from its room number, been in the most heavily damaged section of Torchwood One, from which no material in a salvageable condition was retrieved.  
  
“There'll be enough information in the files,” Jack says, as he sees the dejected slump of Ianto shoulders, as they walk to the canteen.  
  
“Maybe,” Ianto says sounding far from convinced.  
  
“Even if there isn't we'll figure it out,” Jack says, searching for something that’s even vaguely optimistic. “We could call Martha in, she did a great job with Owen.”  
  
“Because we know so much about what will happen to Owen, don't we?” Ianto snaps.  
  
It probably hadn't been the best example, Jack thinks in hind sight. He's saved from having to answer Ianto's question by his mobile ringing.  
  
It's Tosh.  
  
Whatever she's got to tell him, Jack would rather Ianto and himself got to take the call in private.  
  
Holding up his mobile, for Jim to see, Jack says, “You got a room we can use?”  
  
“Sure, this way.”  
  
Jim shows them to an unoccupied office. “I'll wait at the end of the corridor. Give me a shout when you're done.”  
  
“Will do.”  
  
Inside the office they wait until they hear Jim walk away before taking out bluetooth earpieces and putting them on. Not that they are as mundane as they appear to be, not since Tosh's modifications to them to sync their encryption with the one used by the mainframe.  
  
“Hey, what you got for me?” Jack says cheerfully, although he's really not feeling it. “The Rift behaving itself?”  
  
“It's been quiet. Only incident was last night, a couple of amorous weevils in Roath Park.”  
  
“They were shagging,” Owen calls out in the background.  
  
“Thank you, Owen.” Tosh sounds more amused than annoyed at the interruption. “How are things going in London?”  
  
“No luck on finding the cryo units, it looks like they were destroyed.” Jack glances at Ianto, who's sat down at the desk. “There's not much else we can do here, so we're going head home.”  
  
“We've got most of the information we can from the files, do you want to wait until you get back?”  
  
Jack can hear the sadness hidden behind her professionalism, and he's torn between finding out now and having Ianto preoccupied by it all the way back to Cardiff, or to wait and have him worrying about what they've discovered for the same length of time.  
  
Before he can answer one way or the other, Ianto says, “No, I'd rather know now. Whatever it is, it's got to be better than not knowing.”  
  
Jack's not convinced that's actually true, sometime not knowing really is better. He knows he's not going to be able to get Ianto to believe that, and he says, “Okay, give us what you've got.”  
  
“I transferred all the scans you sent me into the mainframe and ran it through a data striping program, so we could work with just the raw facts and figures. I cross referenced the information in the files, the people taking part, the units used and...”  
  
“What Tosh is trying to say,” Owen interrupts. “Is that the cryo unit they stuck you in was the only one of its sort being used. That said a couple of the other units were one offs as well, so it doesn't look like you were singled out. It was just bad luck you got the one with the weird side effects.”  
  
“It matches up with what I found out about the other people who were frozen,” Gwen says, joining the conversation. “Three of them are still alive, one from the five year group and two from the ten year group. They all seem to be ageing normally, and so do their children. So it's not all bad news.”  
  
“How did the others die?” Ianto asks, brushing aside the one positive thing they've so far heard.  
  
“One was heart disease, one was a motorbike crash, and the other three were Torchwood related.” Gwen stops. “Do you want to know what the Torchwood ones were?”  
  
“Not really,” Ianto says, taking a shaky breath. “So it's just me then that's changed?”  
  
“It does seem like that, sorry.”  
  
“Any leads on who made it?” Jack asks, hoping that if they know who originally made the cryo unit they might have a better idea of how it worked and, if possible, how to reverse what it has done.  
  
“Not yet,” Tosh says, sounding a little more hopeful this time. “I’ve got copies of plans that were made of it in 1968 when they recovered it from the Thames. I’m running a search using the text found on the side of it. There’s too little to run a translation program effectively, too few points of reference, but if I can get a match I might be able to get something.”  
  
“If anybody can do it, Tosh, it’s you,” Jack tells her. His team have managed what has seemed like the impossible often enough for him to believe that they can achieve pretty much anything if they put their minds to it. “Okay, Owen, what you got for us?”  
  
“The test results, what else?” Owen answers rather smugly. “They all came back okay. Well better than okay, they were perfect.”  
  
“That's good, isn't it?” Jack says, relieved that there's at least one good piece of information amongst the uncertainty.  
  
“Not really. No one’s results should be that good. Not even a health nut with the best genes in the world. So I started to look a bit deeper, ran the samples through that super fast DNA genome sequencer thing that fell through the Rift last year.”  
  
“And?” Jack really doesn't like the sound of where this is going.  
  
“Turns out Ianto's got a bit extra.”  
  
“A bit extra what?”  
  
“DNA, well not exactly DNA. It'd take the rest of the afternoon to tell you exactly what it is, but basically whatever it did, it did it at a genetic level. The changes are part of him.”  
  
“There's nothing you can do?” Ianto asks, voice hoarse, eyes wide and shocked.  
  
“It'd be like trying to scoop out a pint of beer you'd tipped into the ocean without getting any sea water in it.”  
  
“Right, okay,” his voice drops to a barely above a whisper.  
  
“I'm sorry,” Owen says sounding like he really means it. “Looks like me and Jack aren’t the only freaks round here anymore.”  
  
Taking the earpiece out, Ianto puts it down on the table, his hands shaking.  
  
“Ianto? Oi, you not going to complain about what I called you?” Owen says concerned, when there's there's no reply. “Ianto? Jack? You still there?”  
  
“We're still here,” Jack says distractedly, his focus on Ianto. “Give us a minute.”  
  
“I'm alright. I just need to think. Some space to think,” Ianto says, his voice still faint, and a little disjointed. “Some air.”  
  
“I'll come with you.” Jack reaches to switch off the connection back to the Hub.  
  
“No.” Ianto gets up and heads towards the door. “I want to be alone for a while, please.”  
  
He doesn't like it, but he knows arguing about it will only make things worse. “Alright, but keep your phone on.”  
  
Looking grateful that he's being allowed to go, Ianto nods, and then hurries out of the room.  
  
With a sigh, Jack sits down on the vacated seat. He's not sure what he'd hoped the team would find out, but accidental genetic modification definitely isn't it.  
  
There are probably a dozen different questions that he's sure he should be asking, but none of them seem as important as making sure Ianto is okay.  
  
Putting Ianto's discarded earpiece into his pocket, Jack says, “You can give me the full report when we get back, I'll let you know when we're on our way.”  
  
Not giving them time to ask any questions, Jack disconnects the call from the Hub, and goes to find Ianto.  
  
"Bad news?" Jim asks, as Jack leaves the room and walks towards him.  
  
"Something like that.”  
  
"If you're looking for your man, I let him outside." Jim walks with him to the door. "The lad looked pretty rattled. Is something going on I should be worried about?"  
  
Calling Ianto a lad seems ridiculous to Jack, knowing what he does, but he knows that to Jim Ianto looks to be in his early twenties and young enough to be his son.  
  
His thoughts preoccupied with where Ianto has gone it takes Jack a moment to realise what Jim is asking. Whether something similar what happened to Torchwood One is happening now, and if, as somebody with experience of the clean up, he's going to be called on again.  
  
Giving Jim a reassuring smile, Jack says, “Nothing like that, it's something personal that's been going on for a while.”  
  
“Too much on top of seeing all this stuff again today then?” Jim says, following him out the building to the car park. “I thought he was going to lose it in there. Seen it happen a couple of times to blokes I've served with, everything piles up, and they just snap.”  
  
Jack shivers. He's seen it too. Seen more wars, conflicts and deaths than he'd ever thought it was possible for one person to see. He's seen what it does to people, how it changes them, and sometimes it destroys them.  
  
Wishing that he'd followed Ianto in the first place, he hurries over to their car, hoping that he might have gone there if he'd been looking for somewhere private and out of the rain that has now started to fall.  
  
The car is empty, and there's no indication that Ianto has been there at all. Slamming his hands down on the roof in frustration, Jack looks around. The car park and what he can see of the depot complex are deserted apart from Jim and himself.  
  
Getting out his mobile he calls Ianto. It goes straight to voice mail, the phone switched off.  
  
Feeling more shaken by Ianto deliberately making it impossible to contact him than he wants to admit, Jack leans back against the side of the car, trying to decide what to do next. The storage depot is huge, and Jack knows that if Ianto is trying to avoid him that he'll be very difficult to find.  
  
There's one option that's open to him though, before he calls back to the Hub and gets Tosh to put a trace on the GPS in his phone, and he says, “You said this place has CCTV, could you find where he went?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” Jim nods. “He can't be inside any of the buildings as they're all card only access. The camera cover the whole of the depot, there's nowhere he could have gone that I won't find him.”  
  
“Can you call through? Get them to relay where he is to us?” Jack asks, hating that he's reliant on somebody he doesn't know for this.  
  
“It's recorded, no one watches it,” Jim says, not sounding entirely happy about it. “That's budget cuts for you.”  
  
It's not ideal, especially if Ianto is walking about, because by the time they've found him, and then left the CCTV viewing room to get to his location he could be somewhere entirely different. It'll have to do though.  
  
Jack follows Jim back inside, and through the building to a small office with a couple of large server cases, and a bank of monitors.  
  
“I thought you said nobody viewed the footage?” Jack asks. The set up of the room seems indicate otherwise.  
  
“They don't anymore.” Jim sits down and logs in. “They use to, like I said budget cuts, told us no more hiring for non essential posts. You've have liked Babs, and she'd have been fussing over your man no end. But I guess we've all got to retire sometime, none of us stay young forever.”  
  
Jack just nods. Retiring isn't something he's ever given a thought to. As a Time Agent he'd been more likely to die young or be invalided out than he ever was to get old. As a conman a fixed retirement age didn't apply, nor did it while he was with the Doctor, and after that old age was something he'd never have.  
  
It only takes a couple of minutes for Jim to find what they are looking for.  
  
A grainy image of Ianto talking to the security guard on the gate, who, after a moment or two, lets him out. He turns right out of the entrance and then is out of sight of the camera.  
  
“Any idea where he'd be going?” Jim asks, pausing the feed. “Has he got any friends or family round here?”  
  
“No.” Jack’s eyes stay locked on the screen. Unable to understand why Ianto is doing this, why he’s apparently running from him, he can feel fear, formless as yet, clawing at him. “Do you know what’s in the direction he went?”  
  
“Not much. Parkland, a golf course, the Thames, a couple of pubs, and if you go far enough Kew Gardens. Anything there you'd reckon he'd head for?” Jim says logging out the system.  
  
Ianto finding a pub and getting absolutely wasted is a distinct possibility, but so is just walking by the river. He's found him sitting by the bay back in Cardiff, just staring out at the water, looking lost, as he tries to work through whatever it was that was bothering him, but didn't feel he could share with anyone.  
  
“If you want to get going I’ll sign you out,” Jim says, “You can leave your car here if you think you’re not going to be too long.”  
  
Jack has no idea of how long he’s likely to be. Even if he finds Ianto quickly he doubts he’ll want to come back here to get the car. “I’ll take it with me.”  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Jack checks the pubs first. Ianto isn’t in either and the bar staff don’t remember serving him. The fact that both the pubs are quiet, and that a soaking wet Welshman in a three piece suit would stand out amongst the few patrons, means he’s fairly confident that Ianto hasn’t been there, so he continues his search elsewhere.  
  
Leaving the car in the small car park at the entrance to the old deer park that borders the Thames, Jack puts what he hopes is enough change into the parking meter – getting wheel clamped really isn’t something that he wants to have to deal with on top of everything else – and then sets off towards the river.  
  
The rain, which varies between barely there drizzle and brief period of torrential downpour, is keeping most people indoors, and he passes just a few determined joggers and dog walkers.  
  
A couple of them stop when he asks them if they’ve seen Ianto, and one tells him they saw a man in suit walking up river towards Kew, but couldn’t be sure about anything more than that.  
  
He’s almost ready to admit defeat and call Tosh to put a trace on Ianto’s phone, happy to deal with his annoyance at him intruding on his privacy, when he sees a familiar figure sitting on a bench looking out at the Thames.  
  
It's raining hard, a cold grey torrent that in the murky early evening light almost obscure the opposite bank.  
  
Sitting down next to him, Jack says, “You're a hard man to find.”  
  
Ianto blinks, seeming startled that he's not alone. “I am? You could have just called me.”  
  
“No, I couldn't. It's off,” Jack says, torn between relief that Ianto appears to be alright and annoyance at him switching his phone off after he’d asked him not to.  
  
“Off? It’s not off.” Ianto gets out his phone. The screen is blank. He presses a few buttons, a confused frown on his face. Eventually he says, “The battery must be flat. I must have forgotten to charge it. I never forget to charge it. Sorry.”  
  
“You've had a lot on your mind.” Jack puts an arm around him, relieved that he hadn't been deliberately trying to isolate himself.  
  
When he doesn't say anything else, Jack asks, “How you doing?”  
  
“I don’t know. It just keeps going round and round in my head.” Ianto looks out at the grey, slow moving water, its surface rippling where the rain hits it. “It's real now. It's not just something stupid idea that keeps pops into my head at three in the morning when I can't sleep. I thought I could deal with it,” he says hunching forwards. “But I don't know if I can. I'm not like you.”  
  
“You're stronger than you give yourself credit for.”  
  
“It's not the living part that's the problem, not really,” he says miserably.  
  
Jack gives him a sceptical look.  
  
“Okay it is that too a bit, but it's the getting hurt that scares me the most. I mean it, I'm not like you. I'm not going to grow back fingers if a weevil bites them off, am I? What happens if I get badly hurt? What if it's something that's never going to stop hurting, that's never going to get better?” He looks at Jack, fear in his eyes. “What am I going to do?”  
  
“We'll deal with.” Jack has no idea how, and he's not going to think about right now. Because he knows that if he does he's not going to be in the right frame of mind to be of any use to Ianto. “And who knows, maybe you can grow back fingers, but you won't know it until you need to.”  
  
“Is that really supposed to make me feel better?”  
  
“No, it’s just the truth.” Jack takes hold of his hand. “Believe me, I know all about not knowing what you’ve become, worrying about what it means for the future, and whether there are any answers, and if in the end you really want to know what they are.”  
  
Ianto sighs. “It doesn’t get any easier, does it?”  
  
“I wouldn’t say that. It changes, the things you worry about change.” Honesty even if it's painful, is Jack decides the best policy for this. “Losing people still hurts, but you find ways of dealing with it, ways to go on.”  
  
Feeling rainwater running down his back inside his coat, Jack shivers and says, “I don't suppose you rather do this somewhere dry?”  
  
“It is a bit damp, I suppose,” Ianto says, finally seeming to notice the weather.  
  
“A bit damp?” Jack says with a laugh. It feels good after all the tension, even if it is only momentary.  
  
“I'm Welsh. I'm used to the rain.”  
  
“Well I'm not, and if it gets much wetter I don’t think my coat is ever going to recover.” It’s ridiculous, and Jack knows it, but the small smile that tugs at Ianto’s lips is worth it.  
  
“Alright,” Ianto says, humouring him. “We can't have anything happening to the coat, can we?”  
  
They walk quickly along the footpath that will take them back to the road and eventually to the car park.  
  
“Do you want to grab something to eat before we head home?” Jack asks when they’ve been walking for a while in silence.  
  
Ianto hesitates.  
  
“If you don’t want anything yet, we can wait. Maybe stop at a service station. Only I know what you think of the coffee they have in those places.”  
  
“We’ll find somewhere here,” Ianto says quickly. “A hot drink would be good.”  
  
“I passed a couple of pubs on the way here. We could try one of them,” Jack says trying to remember which one had a coffee machine.  
  
“Do you think they’ll mind?” he gestures vaguely at their wet clothes.  
  
“If they do we can always take them off,” Jack says with a grin.  
  
With a rather horrified look Ianto increases his pace.  
  
“What’s the hurry?” Jack calls after him, not sure if he’s somehow managed to upset or annoy him.  
  
“I just want to get there before the weird naked bloke who’s going to get us both barred arrives,” he says trying hard not to laugh. Glancing back at Jack he adds, “I still remember what happened with the breadstick at….”  
  
Whatever Ianto was going to say is cut off as he walks off the end of the path and into the road.  
  
Everything following that seems to happen in slow motion. The car coming round the corner and the screech of its wheels as the driver tries to brake. The thud of the impact as Ianto is thrown aside, rolling over several times before coming to rest at the side of the road. And finally the crash as the driver loses control of the locked brakes and skids into the hedge.  
  
Time snaps back to normal speed, and with a wordless cry of loss, Jack runs to Ianto's side.  
  
Dropping to his knees beside him, Jack is met by Ianto's blue eyes staring up at him, wide and sightless, his neck turned at an angle that's incompatible with life.  
  
They were going to have forever, and now there's no more time, not even for goodbyes. Cradling Ianto against him, his tears mixing with the torrential rain, Jack kisses Ianto's forehead.  
  
Having sat for so long in the wind and rain, Ianto's skin is already cold. It reinforces the fact that he's dead, and a series of racking sobs shake Jack as he presses his lips to his lover’s. “Ianto, please.”  
  
Ianto suddenly gasps, his body tensing and jerking in Jack's arms.  
  
Jerking back so that he doesn't get head butted in the nose, Jack finds Ianto staring at him, fear and confusion in his eyes.  
  
“What happened? What's wrong?”  
  
It's amazing and just that bit frightening, and even after lifetimes of it happening to himself, Jack finds it doesn't make it less so to see it happen to somebody else. He wonders if everybody who has seen him revive feels like this.  
  
“You're alright.”  
  
“Bruised, but don't think anything is broken,” Ianto says sounding calmer and more in control now than he had just moments ago. He touches his finger tips to the cut on his forehead. “Head wounds always look worse than they are, that's what people say, don't they?”  
  
Still staring in surprise, Jack’s voice wavers as he says, “You're alive.”  
  
“Just lucky, I guess?” Freeing himself from Jack's embrace, Ianto gets unsteadily to his feet and limps over to the driver who's trying unsuccessfully to use a mobile. “Come on we need to stop him calling the police. I really can't deal with them right now.”  
  
The driver, a man of about 70, is sat on the verge next to his car, his head in his hands, as he just keeps repeating, “I didn't see him, I didn't see him. Why didn’t I see him?”  
  
Stunned by everything that has happening, Jack can only watch as Ianto starts talking to the man.  
  
“I hit you,” he says, looking surprised but relieved that Ianto is on his feet. “I'm sorry, I didn't see you. I'm really sorry.”  
  
“You didn't hit me, I jumped out of the way,” Ianto says, leaning against the side on the man's car, so that he's not needing to rest too much weight on his injured leg. “It was my fault really. I wasn't looking where I was going.”  
  
Jack knows that it's a lie, and he’s aware that Ianto knows it is too. For the moment though he decides to go along with it, realising that Ianto is only doing this so that there won't be too many questions asked.  
  
“Honestly it's my pride is damaged more than anything else.” Ianto puts his hand on the man’s arm. “You ended up in the hedge. Are you alright?”  
  
The man nods. “I've been driving nigh on fifty years, and I've never hit anything before.”  
  
“Accidents happen,” Ianto says, reassuringly. “Now I suppose we'd better get this sorted out.”  
  
Leaving Ianto telling the driver that everything is going to be okay, Jack makes a couple of quick phone calls, one to a garage that he knows has a reputation for discrete pick ups – they'd done a huge amount of business with them after the whole ATMOS debacle earlier that year. The other is to the Empress of India hotel, to inform them that they will need the room for the night after all. Jack has no intention of driving back to Cardiff tonight unless there is no other option.  
  
The driver, whose name it turns out is George, is shaken, but otherwise unhurt, and his car, although dented from the collision, isn't so badly damaged as to arouse suspicion.  
  
It doesn’t take long for the tow truck to arrive, and for George and his car to be taken away, and then they’re left alone in the deserted road.  
  
Turning away from Jack and the road, Ianto stumbles onto the verge, starting to shake.  
  
“Ianto?” Jack is at his side in a moment, putting an arm about him.  
  
Turning, so that he's pressed close against Jack, Ianto says hoarsely, “I was dead, wasn't I?”  
  
Jack nods, not trusting his voice. The image of Ianto lying in the road, head twisted to one side, his eyes staring blankly at him, is going to be something that'll haunt him for a long time to come.  
  
There’s an edge of grim humour in Ianto’s voice as he says, “I guess I don't have to worry about getting hurt anymore.”  
  
“We can't stay here,” Jack says, avoiding the subject. “We'll go back to the hotel, get you cleaned up, get some dry clothes.”  
  
Leaning against him, Ianto nods, looking too worn out to argue.  
  
It isn't a long walk back to the car, but with Ianto limping and shivering it takes far longer than Jack would like.  
  
The drive back to the Empress of India isn't too bad, the rush hour not really having started in earnest yet, and the having the heater on full blast in the car helps dry their clothes.  
  
Check in is swift, the man on the reception desk looking at their wet and dishevelled appearance with curiosity, although he makes no comment, instead handing over their key with a smile, saying, “I hope you enjoy your stay, sirs.”  
  
“Come on,” Jack says once they are inside their room. “Let's get a proper look at you.”  
  
“I'm alright,” Ianto says limping over to the kettle and complimentary tea and coffee. “I'll make us a drink and then we can talk. I think we need to talk.”  
  
“I’ll do it. You need to get out of those wet clothes,” Jack says seeing how much Ianto’s hands are shaking as he picks up the sugar and adds it to the cups. Letting him pour boiling water seems like an accident waiting to happen.  
  
Not that his own mind is really focused on doing anything other than worry at the moment. He thinks back to when Lisa had thrown him across the Hub to land in the pool at the base of the water tower. In the heat of the moment, and desperate for Ianto to be alive, despite anger at his betrayal, Jack has been torn between whether Ianto hadn’t been as badly hurt as such a fall should have made him, or that his half kiss half CPR has actually helped.  
  
Now Jack wonders if the same thing hadn’t happened then. Perhaps the fall had broken Ianto’s neck as just for a few brief moments he’d feared it had. Perhaps he’d come back to life and had just assumed he’d been unconscious.  
  
Turning away from the drinks, he sees Ianto fumbling over the buttons on his waistcoat.  
  
Closing his hands over Ianto's, Jack says, “Let me do that.”  
  
Just two nights ago he'd done this with a very different motive in mind. There’s no teasing tonight, although he is still careful, uncertain the damage he’ll find beneath.  
  
All the injuries that remain, even though they're uncomfortable, are superficial, Jack is pleased to find.  
  
There are a few scratches on his hands, knees and elbows, in addition to the shallow cut on his forehead. The worst though is the large bruise spread across Ianto's hip and thigh, where the initial impact had occurred, already look as if it has had a few days to develop to a deep, mottled purple, going yellow towards the edges.  
  
He feels cool to Jack’s touch though, and is still shivering periodically despite the warmth of the room. “Let’s get you warmed up. I was thinking a nice hot shower.”  
  
“That sounds like the best idea I've heard all day.”  
  
“Didn’t you know, all my best idea involve no clothes,” Jack says starting to strip of his own wet clothes.  
  
Surprised Ianto says, “What are you doing?”  
  
“As good as I look in a wet t-shirt, I'm not showering with my clothes on.” Jack looks down at his t-shirt. “And I can't have you hogging all the hot water.”  
  
It's lie, but it's easier than saying he doesn't want to let him out sight yet, that as ridiculous as it might seem a small part of him is scared that if he can’t see him that somehow he’ll stop being there.  
  
There's understanding in Ianto's eyes as he takes hold of Jack's hand. “Of course. I expect old hotels like this run out of hot water all the time.”  
  
The shower isn't exactly large, but it's big enough for them to stand close under the warm spray.  
  
The heat and closeness help, and Jack feels himself start to relax.  
  
“You were shaking too,” Ianto says softly.  
  
“I was?” Jack looks surprised.  
  
“You still are, a little.” Ianto takes Jack’s hand in his own. “I’m sorry I scared you.”  
  
“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” Jack tries to push the images of Ianto lying in the road out of his mind. It had been his fault, he'd distracted him, and he'd died. And if it hadn't been for some stupid misjudgement in what they were using in a decades old research project Ianto would be dead, and he'd never be able to forgive himself.  
  
“Jack?”  
  
“For a moment back there, I thought I'd lost you,” Jack says, holding Ianto close. “And all I could think was that I'd never told you that I...”  
  
“That you love me?” Ianto says quietly, taking hold of Jack's hand. “I know you do. You don't have to say it.”  
  
“But I should.” Jack looks down at their linked hands. He's not been this nervous since he'd asked Ianto out on a date just after his return. “I've not fallen this hard for anybody in years.”  
  
“You don't have to do this,” Ianto says, voice wavering.  
  
“Yes, I do.” Jack looks into his eyes. “I love you, Ianto Jones, and it scares the hell out of me, because we really could have forever, and right now that still doesn't feel like enough time.”  
  
“Oh God.” Letting go of Jack's hand he covers his eyes.  
  
It's pretty much the opposite of the reaction that he'd been hoping for. “What wrong?”  
  
“Forever, living forever. I can't....deal with...it. Not yet.” Turning his face against Jack’s neck, Ianto clings to him, tears falling unchecked.  
  
Holding him, Jack lets him cry, relieved that he’s is allowing himself to let go.  
  
Finally when Ianto's breathing has evened out, and his grip on him has grown less desperate, Jack says, “How are you doing?”  
  
“Tired, sore, a bit lost,” he says, voice still rough from recently shed tears. “But better, I think. Not great, but better.” Closing his eyes, he leans against Jack. “I’m so tired.”  
  
“Come on then,” Jack says, switching off the shower. “Let’s go to bed.”  
  
“I'm not sure my leg is up anything much yet,” Ianto says doubtfully. He tests his bruised leg, putting more weight on it. Biting back a curse, he transfers the weight back to the other leg. “Okay, definitely not doing anything tonight.”  
  
“I meant to sleep.” Keeping an arm around him, Jack grabs a couple of towels. “Well, for now at least. Later on? That’s up to you.”  
  
Smiling slightly, Ianto takes one of the towels and starts to dry his hair.  
  
“We spend an extra night away together and I go back walking funny,” Ianto says with a laugh that is mostly genuine, as he limps to the bed. “They're all going to think only one thing.”  
  
“What are you going to tell them?” Jack asks, pulling back the covers so Ianto can get in.  
  
“The truth,” Ianto says with a sigh as he settles back against the pillows. “They need to know. I won't let them put their lives at risk to save mine because I've decided to keep them in the dark.”  
  
The idea of seeing Ianto dying again leaves Jack cold, but he find he can’t argue against it, as it’s something he does himself. Instead he says, “Just don’t make it the first choice, okay?”  
  
“It won’t be.” Ianto groans as he tries to roll over, before giving up and staying where he is. “I’d rather not feel like this very often, but…” He stops and looks steadily at him. “If it’s a choice between their lives and mine, I want you to know that I’m going to put them first. I’m just as tired of losing people as you are.”  
  
“I know,” Jack says, leaning over and kissing him. “Now try to get some sleep.”  
  
Nodding and yawning, Ianto closes his eyes, content that he has been understood.  
  
With Ianto half asleep beside him, his head resting against his shoulder, Jack smiles.  
  
The situation might be far from perfect, and they may never know exactly what happened to Ianto all those years ago, but they’ve reached a point they can move forward.  
  
There's no such thing as an ending, in Jack’s opinion, not really, not while life goes on. And for them life is going to be a very long time indeed.  
  
Looking at Ianto though, that endless future stretching out in front of him doesn’t look quite so lonely anymore.


End file.
